THE 

LITTLE  GODS 
LAUGH 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 


"  Don't  touch  me! "  she  gasped.    FRONTISPIECE.    See  page  79. 


THE 
LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 


A  NOVEL 


BY 

LOUISE  MAUNSELL  FIELD 


WITH  FRONTISPIECE  BY 

JOHN  NEWTON  HOWITT 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN  AND  COMPANY 
1917 


Copyright,  1917, 
BY  LOUISE  MAUNSELL  FIELD. 


rights  reserved 


Published,  September,  191? 


8.  J.   1'AKKHILL  &  CO.,  BOSTON,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  INTRODUCING  Miss  WYNNE   .          ...        1 

II     THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT 25 

III  ONE  MAN  AND  Two  MAIDS 44 

IV  Miss  CORNELIA'S  CODE  .      .      .      .      .      .56 

V     HER  HOUR 71 

VI  HOOPS  OF  STEEL 81 

VII  ON  UNFAMILIAR  PATHS 97 

VIII  NITA  SHUTS  THE  DOOR Ill 

IX  AFTER  MANY  DAYS 123 

X  THESE  TWAIN 140 

XI  THE  ACQUIRED  VIRTUE 155 

XII  MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS  .  .  .  .171 

XIII  OUT  OF  THE  DARK 192 

XIV  ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR •  .  206 

XV  THE  TURN  OF  THE  BALANCE      ....   229 

XVI  "NOTHING  MATTERS  ANY  MORE"    .      .      .   239 

XVII  REVELATION          ...     ^      ....   252 

XVIII  LOVE — AND  LOYALTY      *      i      .      «      .      .   262 

XIX  THE  MOMENT  OF  TRIAL       .      ...    .      .      .272 

XX  THE  LITTLE  GODS  ENJOY  THEMSELVES  .  288 

XXI  AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING 310 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCING   MISS   WYNNE 

IT  was  after  six  o'clock,  and  the  throng  of 
arriving  and  departing  guests,  which  for 
two  hours  had  crowded  Mrs.  Carton's  rather 
small  drawing-room  almost  to  suffocation,  was 
thinning  a  little.  The  welcoming  smile  on  the 
hostess'  lips  had  become  a  fixed,  mechanical 
grin:  her  debutante  daughter  Florence,  in 
whose  honor  all  these  people  had  assembled, 
had  lost  the  excited  flush  which  earlier  in  the 
afternoon  had  done  much  to  redeem  her  de- 
cidedly plain  features,  and  now  looked  en- 
viously down  through  the  open  doors  to  the 
dining  room  where  some  of  the  girls  of  the  re- 
ceiving party,  wise  through  experience,  had 
found  seats  for  themselves  and  Were  chatting 
gayly  with  the  few  young  men  who  had  re- 
sponded to  Mrs.  Carton's  invitation.  All  this 


2      THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Mrs.  Haight  noticed  as  she  greeted  that  lady 
and  exchanged  conventional  pleasantries  with 
the  tired  debutante.  She  could  have  passed  a 
rigid  examination  as  to  the  looks  and  clothes 
of  mother  and  daughter,  the  cost  and  number 
of  the  bouquets  massed  on  piano  and  mantel- 
shelf, the  personnel  of  the  guests — and  passed 
it  triumphantly.  Long  practice  had  taught 
her  how  to  gather  considerable  information 
with  a  few  quick  glances. 

Still  talking  to  the  hostess,  she  looked  about 
the  rooms,  searching  for  the  three  persons  who 
together  comprised  the  principal  reason  for 
her  own  presence  at  this  coming-out  tea.  One 
of  the  three  was  her  eldest  daughter,  who  was 
to  meet  her  here  at  a  quarter  past  six.  She 
was  a  little  early,  however,  and  there  was  still 
no  sign  of  Geraldine ;  but  this  was  of  small  im- 
portance, since  Rudolph  Drake  had  not  yet 
come. 

Suddenly  a  group  at  the  farther  end  of  the 
dining  room  parted,  and  a  young  girl,  emerg- 
ing thence,  sped  across  the  intervening  space 
with  a  kind  of  soft  rush,  as  if  on  wings.  With 
her  came  an  instantaneous  impression  of  light 
and  joy,  of  swift,  sure,  graceful  movement,  of 
a  flash  and  sparkle  like  that  of  sunlight  on 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE     3 

leaping  waters.  It  was  as  though  a  fresh,  in- 
vigoraiing  breeze  straight  from  the  sea  had 
blown  into  the  dull,  overheated  room.  And 
now  she  was  speaking  with  an  enunciation  so 
beautifully  clear  that  her  words  were  not  in 
the  least  jumbled  or  indistinct,  quickly  as  they 
were  uttered — uttered  with  a  certain  dainty  im- 
patience which  suggested  that  she  found 
speech  too  slow  a  means  for  conveying  thought. 

"Oh,  Cousin  Caroline,  Mr.  Matthews  says 
he'll  give  us  a  New  Year's  Eve  supper  and 
dance  if  you'll  chaperon  it!  Will  you?"  she 
demanded  eagerly. 

Mrs.  Carton's  mechanical  smile  softened  un- 
til it  became  quite  human.  In  theory  she  dis- 
approved of  Nita  Wynne's  impetuousness ;  for 
her  own  daughter's  sake  she  was  often  a  trifle 
jealous,  not  so  much  of  her  good  looks  as  of 
that  gift  of  personality  which  made  her  always 
a  notable,  frequently  the  central  figure  in  a 
room;  but  somehow  she  invariably  found  her- 
self unable  to  resist  the  charm  of  the  girl's 
actual  presence.  The  tired  debutante  bright- 
ened as  if  she  had  caught  a  little  of  the  other's 
overflowing  vitality. 

"Why — yes;  I — I  suppose  so."  Mrs.  Car- 
ton hesitated,  not  because  she  disliked  the  plan, 


4      THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

but  because  hesitation  was  her  ingrained  habit 
of  mind.  "Only  I  want  to  know — " 

She  paused,  and  Mr.  Atkinson  Matthews, 
the  wealthy,  elderly  widower,  who  was  both 
financially  and  socially  a  model  of  solid  con- 
servatism, now  spoke.  He  had  followed  Nita, 
though  at  a  pace  commensurate  with  his  age 
and  avoirdupois : 

"My  grandnephew,  Donald  For sy the,  will 
be  back  in  New  York  by  then,  I  hope,  and  I 
want  him  to  know  you  all.  So  I  thought  this 
little  supper —  Ah,  Mrs.  Haight,  how  do  you 
do?" 

He  shook  hands  with  Mrs.  Haight,  who 
greeted  him  most  cordially.  In  spite  of  his 
sixty  years  he  was  still  eligible,  and  Geraldine's 
continued  spinsterhood  was  becoming  a  matter 
of  grave  concern  to  her  mother.  Turning  now 
to  the  young  girl,  he  added  with  a  little  smile : 

"You  and  I  will  arrange  the  details  later, 
Mrs.  Carton.  Nita  couldn't  wait  to  settle  any- 
thing!" 

"Now  that's  not  fair,  Mr.  Matthews!"  she 
laughed  with  an  infectious  gayety  which  made 
those  about  her  smile  in  involuntary  response. 
"You  know  you  said— 

"My  dear  Nita,  how  are  you?     I've  been 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE       5 

just  dying  for  a  chance  to  tell  you  how  sweet 
you  look!" 

Nita  stiffened  instantly;  and  ice  could  not 
have  been  colder  than  was  her  formal  "Good 
afternoon,  Mrs.  Ashurst." 

But  Mrs.  Violet  Ashurst,  Dakota  divorcee 
and  soldier  of  fortune,  was  not  easily  rebuffed. 
She  was  perfectly  aware  that  she  had  no  actual 
right  to  use  the  Christian  name,  and  wished 
now  that  she  had  not  done  so.  For  purposes 
of  her  own  she  was  resolved  to  be  on  friendly 
terms  with  Anita  Wynne — ostensibly,  at 
least. 

"My  dear,  that  gown  of  yours  is  a  perfect 
dream!"  she  gushed,  surveying  the  confection 
of  snow-white  tulle  and  silver  tissue  that  fluffed 
crisply  about  Nita's  straight,  slim  young  body. 
"The  way  you  manage  to  choose  exactly  the 
right  things  to  wear  is  wonderful — simply  won- 
derful! I  really  believe  you  do  better  alone 
than  if  your  dear  mother  was  here  to  advise 
you!" 

She  meant  to  flatter,  but  although  a  fairly 
shrewd  woman,  she  was  not  clever  enough  to 
allow  for  feelings  of  which  she  was  herself  en- 
tirely incapable.  Mrs.  Wynne  had  been  dead 
five  years  or  more;  how  could  Nita  possibly 


6      THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

be  hurt  or  displeased  by  any  allusion  to  the 
fact? 

A  dozen  replies  had  leaped  to  the  young 
girl's  lips  and  been  stopped  there,  partly  by 
social  training,  partly  by  innate  good  breed- 
ing. But  she  believed  Mrs.  Ashurst  intended 
to  wound  her,  and  so  neither  of  these  could 
control  the  wave  of  color  under  the  transparent 
skin,  or  the  angry  glint  in  the  gray-green  eyes. 

Mr.  Matthews  saw  she  was  annoyed,  and 
though  he  did  not  understand  the  cause,  he  at 
once  intervened. 

"Come  back  and  tell  the  others,"  he  said. 
"They  mustn't—" 

But  before  he  began  to  speak,  Nita  had 
darted  away  from  him,  and  now  stood  hold- 
ing a  hand  of  each  of  the  two  dainty,  rather 
old-fashioned  little  ladies  who  had  just  arrived. 
The  Misses  Cornelia  and  Sophia  Van  Vechten, 
distant  connections  by  marriage  of  Atkinson 
Matthews,  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in 
New  York,  like  their  parents  and  grandpar- 
ents and  great-grandparents  before  them ;  they 
were  living  encyclopaedias  of  information  re- 
garding that  social  life  of  which  their  ances- 
tors had  for  generations  been  a  part.  Inclined 
though  they  were  to  be  extremely  critical  of 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE       7 

the  young  people  of  the  day,  they  held  Nita 
Wynne  very  dear,  partly  because  some  of  their 
own  beliefs  and  prejudices  were  hers  by  tra- 
dition and  inheritance.  Now  she  quickly  took 
them  to  seats,  saw  to  it  that  they  were  served 
with  just  what  they  preferred  of  the  elaborate 
collation  of  bouillon  and  oysters,  salad  and  cro- 
quettes and  pates,  biscuit  and  ices  and  fancy 
cakes  which  in  those  days  when  the  twentieth 
centuiy  had  not  yet  emerged  from  babyhood 
it  was  customary  to  provide  at  afternoon  re- 
ceptions, and  herself  hovered  about,  pouring 
forth  a  stream  of  gayest  chatter  touched  with 
a  certain  pretty  deference.  Mrs.  Carton  and 
Florence,  Mr.  Matthews,  Mrs.  Haight,  Violet 
Ashurst — the  eyes  of  each  and  every  one  of 
them  followed  her,  but  with  quite  different 
feelings. 

Mrs.  Haight's  gaze  directed  that  of  Ger- 
aldine,  who  had  arrived  during  the  brief  dia- 
logue between  Nita  and  Mrs.  Ashurst.  The 
mother's  eyes  moved  and  paused  with  a  signifi- 
cance the  daughter  understood  perfectly. 
This  was  Geraldine's  eighth  season,  and  the  two 
had  long  since  tacitly  arranged  a  code  of 
glances.  If  not  entirely  harmonious,  they 
were  at  least  working  toward  the  same  end. 


8      THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

And  now,  in  accordance  with  that  wordless  ad- 
vice, Geraldine  strolled  forward  and  joined 
Mrs.  Dane.  The  companion  thus  chosen  was 
a  rich  woman  and  entertained  lavishly;  but  it 
was  merely  an  added  bit  of  good  luck  that  it 
was  she  who  chanced  to  be  standing  just  there, 
midway  between  the  entrance  door  and  the 
dining  room.  No  matter  who  might  come  to 
share  it  with  her,  Geraldine  did  not  intend  to 
move  from  that  strategically  advantageous 
position  until  the  event  occurred  for  which  she 
was  waiting. 

She  was  none  too  soon.  Nita,  imploringly 
summoned,  had  left  the  Misses  Van  Vechten 
and  returned  to  the  joyous  group  in  the  dining 
room  when  Rudolph  Drake  at  last  appeared. 
In  the  mirror  Geraldine  could  see  him,  speak- 
ing to  Mrs.  Carton ;  now  he  was  looking  about, 
evidently  searching  for  some  one.  Was  it  for 
herself?  A  month  ago  she  would  have  smiled 
in  happy  security,  but  now —  In  the  flower- 
banked  mirror  she  watched  his  gaze  travel 
about  the  rooms ;  watched  it,  and  saw  it  rest  on 
Nita  Wynne,  satisfied.  But  in  order  to  reach 
that  slender,  white-robed  figure  he  must  pass 
close  by  her — as  she  had  arranged.  She 
waited,  forcing  herself  to  listen  and  reply  to 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE       9 

Mrs.  Dane's  gentle  commonplaces.  He  was 
approaching  her,  he  was  about  to  go  on — 

She  wheeled  around  quickly,  with  proffered 
hand.  "Why,  Mr.  Drake!  I  thought  you 
never  went  to  debutante  teas!" 

It  was  perhaps  not  quite  safe  to  say  that, 
when  only  yesterday  his  sister,  Violet  Ashurst, 
had  told  her  of  his  promise  to  join  her  at  this 
one.  But  the  remark  might  tempt  him  to 
speech,  to  defense  and  an  explanation — might 
deter  him  from  going  straight  to  Nita 
Wynne. 

And  half  unconsciously,  half  against  her 
will,  Geraldine  glanced  toward  her  rival  and 
met  the  clear,  gray-green  eyes. 

An  instant  those  two  measured  each  other: 
in  the  glance  of  the  one  was  defiance,  in  that 
of  the  other  scorn.  And  both  were  deaf  to  the 
laughter  of  those  little  gods  who  revel  in  the 
ironies  and  inconsistencies  of  human  life. 

Anita  Wynne,  barely  twenty  though  she 
was,  had  gone  too  much  into  society  not  to 
know  something  about  the  silent,  merciless 
competition  from  which  she  proudly  held  her- 
self aloof;  if  men  admired  her  and  sought  her 
out,  as  Rudolph  Drake  had  been  doing  ever 
since  their  first  meeting  in  Mrs.  Bartlett's  box 


10     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

at  the  Horse  Show,  why,  well  and  good;  she 
enjoyed  their  attention,  but  she  would  not 
move  out  of  her  path  by  so  much  as  a  hair's 
breadth  in  order  to  obtain  it.  And  she  had 
only  contempt  for  girls  who  made  themselves 
cheap,  which  in  her  opinion  Geraldine  unques- 
tionably did  when  she  haunted  the  places 
where  she  was  likely  to  encounter  Mr.  Drake, 
or,  as  in  the  present  instance,  frustrated  his 
obvious  intention  of  passing  her  by  with  merely 
a  bow.  Nita  turned  so  that  her  back  was  to- 
wards the  drawing-room,  but  some  sixth  sense 
told  her  that  Geraldine  was  doing  her  utmost  to 
hold  Drake.  Well,  let  her  keep  him  if  she 
could!  Miss  Wynne  had  not  the  slightest  in- 
tention of  stooping  to  a  contest  with  her. 

But  she  was  nevertheless  acutely  aware  of 
his  presence,  waiting  with  taut  nerves  for  his 
decision.  He  must  come  to  her;  come  all  the 
way:  but  she  could  not  help  hoping — 

"And  how  is  the  Snow  Queen  this  after- 
noon?" 

Drake's  voice  at  her  side  gave  Nita  a  de- 
licious little  thrill,  half  of  triumph,  half  of 
something  not  altogether  unlike  fear.  For 
beneath  the  light  tone  in  which  he  uttered  the 
rather  trite  nickname  he  had  given  her  because 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE     11 

of  the  white  gowns  she  usually  wore  there  was 
a  hint  of  earnestness,  an  anxiety  and  im- 
patience almost — tender?  She  was  not  sure; 
she  was  conscious  principally  of  the  thrill, 
of  the  quick  color  that  again,  though  for  a 
very  different  reason,  was  flushing  her  soft 
cheeks. 

She  smiled,  and  the  heavily  fringed  eyelids 
drooped,  hiding  her  happy  eyes.  No  words, 
indeed,  were  required  of  her,  for  several  of  the 
group,  all  talking  at  once,  were  enthusias- 
tically claiming  Drake's  cooperation  in  the 
New  Year's  Eve  project.  He  was  exceed- 
ingly popular,  and  not  one  of  them  all  was  so 
unsophisticated  as  not  to  know  that  he  had  been 
more  or  less  attentive  to  Geraldine  Haight 
before  meeting  Nita;  they  felt  and  enjoyed  the 
dramatic  quality  of  the  situation. 

In  the  other  room,  among  the  older  and  more 
experienced,  its  possibilities  were  even  better 
appreciated,  if  less  enjoyed.  Mrs.  Ashurst 
alone  was  entirely  pleased,  since  a  match  be- 
tween her  brother  and  Nita  Wynne,  frustrat- 
ing as  it  surely  must  Nita's  probable  and  per- 
haps powerful  opposition  to  certain  plans  of 
her  own,  would  suit  her  very  well.  And  she 
was  not  without  pleasure  in  Mrs.  Haight's  dis- 


12    JHE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

comfiture ;  they  were  both  to  some  extent  social 
buccaneers,  and  therefore  antipathetic. 

"What  a  handsome  pair  they  make,  don't 
they?"  she  said,  with  a  little  nod  toward  Drake 
and  Nita,  standing  together  in  the  midst  of  a 
laughing  group.  She  knew  her  remark  was 
banal,  but  that  did  not  trouble  her. 

"Do  you  think  it's  going  to — er — to  amount 
to  anything?"  Mrs.  Carton  asked  a  trifle 
anxiously. 

She  was  a  conservative  woman,  descended, 
like  Nita  herself,  from  a  family  which  had 
settled  in  New  York  during  Colonial  days. 
She  distrusted  the  type  of  go-ahead  young 
Wall  Street  man  which  Drake  represented, 
and  still  more  the  divorcee  of  questionable 
record,  like  his  sister's.  She  would  have  pre- 
ferred not  to  admit  either  of  them  to  her  house, 
but  they  went  and  always  had  gone  "every- 
where," and  her  conservatism  was  of  the  kind 
which  cannot  be  independent  even  in  its  own 
defense. 

Violet  Ashurst  shrugged  her  shoulders- 
shrugged  them  a  little  too  much.  Her  words 
and  gestures,  her  clothes  and  her  manners,  were 
like  her  complexion — over-emphasized. 

"I'm  sure   I   don't  know,"   she  answered. 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE     13 

"Rudolph  never  tells  me  anything  about  his 
affaires  de  coeur;  perhaps  because  a  good  many 
of  them  haven't  been  the  kind  a  man  does  tell 
his  sister  about.  They're  so  extraordinarily 
careful  of  their  sisters  1  But  it  certainly 
looks—" 

She  broke  off  with  a  suggestive  little  laugh. 

Not  many  guests  remained  now,  and  the 
group  they  had  been  watching  had  shifted, 
altered,  re-formed,  and  presently  melted  away. 
As  Mrs.  Ashurst  spoke,  the  two  little  Misses 
Van  Vechten  came  timidly  toward  Drake  and 
Nita,  The  man  was  barely  able  to  conceal  his 
annoyance  at  their  approach,  but  the  girl  wel- 
comed them  with  a  shade  of  relief.  He  was 
trying  to  go  just  a  trifle  too  fast;  she  was  not 
yet  ready,  not  yet  quite  sure  either  of  him  or 
of  herself. 

"It  has  been  so  pleasant  to  see  you,  dear 
child,"  said  Miss  Cornelia  Van  Vechten  affec- 
tionately. "How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Drake?" 
She  paused  an  instant,  and  added  in  a  tone 
whose  soft  wistfulness  was  like  the  scent  of 
rosemary:  "You  will  not  object,  I  trust,  if  I 
tell  you  how  greatly  you  resemble  your  father ; 
I  knew  him,"  she  continued  with  gentle  dig- 
nity, "very  well  indeed." 


At  any  other  time  Drake  might  have  been 
amused  or  even  touched  by  the  quaint  little 
gentlewoman,  but  now  his  "Thank  you,  Miss 
Van  Vechten.  I'm  very  glad  to  resemble 
him"  was  purely  perfunctory.  Fortunately 
two  of  his  hearers  were  not  analytical,  and  the 
third  too  young  and  inexperienced  to  distin- 
guish nuances  of  tone  with  any  certainty. 

Miss  Cornelia  babbled  gently  on:  "It  is 
really  astonishing  to  me  that  you  young  men 
in  Wall  Street  should  so  successfully  preserve 
your  health.  One  would  fancy  you  would  suc- 
cumb to  the  strain." 

"Some  of  us  do."  Drake  curbed  his  im- 
patience with  difficulty,  fearing  to  show  ill- 
temper  before  Nita. 

Miss  Cornelia  sighed.  "The  responsibility 
must  indeed  be  exhausting!  Mr.  Trent  spoke 
of  it  so  often!  Probably  you  knew  Mr. 
Trent?  He  advised  us  about  our  investments 
for  many  years.  We  have  felt  quite  lost  since 
his  decease." 

"I  thought  his  partner  was  carrying  on  the 
business,"  Drake  said. 

"Yes;  Mr.  Hobbs.  A  very  worthy  man,  no 
doubt,  but  one  does  not  feel  quite  the  same  con- 
fidence—  We  really  know  nothing  either 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE     15 

about  him  or  about  his  family."  Miss  Cor- 
nelia lowered  her  voice.  "It  is  far  more  agree- 
able to  consult  with  a  person  who  belongs 
among  one's  own  friends!  And  especially 
now,  when  there  is  so  much  talk  about  rail- 
roads, particularly  the  North  Eastern.  We 
are  most  doubtful  whether  it  would  be  wise  to 
sell  our — er — holdings,  or  keep  them.  What 
do  you  think,  Mr.  Drake?  I  know  you  are 
fully  cognizant  regarding  such  matters.  Is 
the  North  Eastern  in  your  opinion  entirely — ?" 

Drake  hesitated  an  instant.  Nita,  who  al- 
ready knew  more  about  business  than  the 
Misses  Van  Vechten  ever  would  or  could  learn, 
thought  he  disliked  being  so  questioned  in  such 
a  place,  and  grew  convinced  of  it  as  the  pause 
lengthened.  At  last  he  said,  rather  delib- 
erately : 

"Oh,  the  newspapers  are  always  trying  to 
get  up  some  sort  of  a  sensation.  There's  noth- 
ing the  matter  with  the  North  Eastern.  It's 
perfectly  sound.  A  gilt-edged  investment." 

Miss  Cornelia  brightened  and  said  grate- 
fully: "We  are  so  rejoiced  to  hear  you  say 
that!  Mr.  Hobbs  has  been  urging  us  to  sell, 
but  now  we  shall  feel  quite  confident.  And  the 
North  Eastern  has  paid  regularly  for  years." 


16     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Father  always  laughs  about  the  North 
Eastern  and  says  it's  as  sure  as  taxes,"  re- 
marked Nita  gayly.  "He  put  most  of  moth- 
er's money  into  it." 

Drake  turned  to  her,  opened  his  lips,  and 
closed  them  almost  with  a  snap.  A  thoughtful 
little  frown  gathered  on  his  forehead. 

"I'm  going  to  tell  Mrs.  Van  Tighe  what  you 
say,  Mr.  Drake,"  the  gently  garrulous  Miss 
Cornelia  tinkled  on.  "She  owns  some  North 
Eastern  too,  and  so  does  Miss  Pauristaine. 
They  will  be  very  greatly  relieved." 

A  shadow  passed  over  Drake's  handsome 
face. 

"Of  course,  we're  none  of  us  infallible. 
And  my  opinion — "  He  stopped  abruptly. 

"You  are  like  your  dear  father  in  more  than 
looks.  He  was  always  so  careful  and  so  con- 
scientious in  his  judgments!  One  might  be 
sure  his  son —  Yes,  Sophia,  I'm  coming. 
We  are  dining  out,  Mr.  Drake,  so  you  must 
excuse  us  for  hurrying  away.  I  assure  you, 
you  have  taken  a  weight  off  our  minds.  It  is 
such  a  comfort  to  have  a  gentleman's  opinion, 
and  although  Mr.  Hobbs  is  no  doubt  an  excel- 
lent man,  one  does  not  feel  quite  the  same  con- 
fidence in  his  integrity  one  does  in  that  of  a 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE     17 

person  one  really  knows.  Good-by,  Nita  dear. 
You  must  come  to  tea  with  us  soon."  And 
Miss  Cornelia  at  last  fluttered  away,  followed 
by  her  silent  sister. 

Drake  drew  a  long  breath.  "Good  heavens, 
what  a  chatterbox!" 

"But  she's  such  a  dear!"  Nita  protested. 
"I'm  very  fond  of  Miss  Cornelia." 

"Oh,  I  suppose  she's  all  right,  and  she  looks 
like  a  piece  of  Dresden  china,  but  I — well,  I 
hate  anybody  who  comes  around  when  I'm 
talking  to  you!  I  don't  get  many  chances  to 
be  with  you,  and  I  want  to  make  the  most  of 
every  minute.  It's  something  to  think  about 
and  live  on  all  the  rest  of  the  time,  when  you're 
with  other  people.  Do  you  ever  think  of  me 
then?  Won't  you  try  to  give  me  just  a 
thought  sometimes — Snow  Queen?" 

"I've  been  waiting  for  a  chance  to  thank  you 
for  your  flowers."  The  maiden  instinct  to 
evade  and  fence  was  strong,  those  days,  in  Nita 
Wynne.  "They're  lovely." 

"Then  they're  not  altogether  unworthy  of 
you.  Only  they're  not  half  lovely  enough. 
Nothing  is  or  could  be !" 

She  was  seated  now  in  a  big  armchair  with  a 
high  carved  back,  while  he  stood  at  her  side, 


18     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

bending  over  her  a  little.  As  he  spoke  she 
touched  her  corsage  bouquet  of  lilies-of-the- 
valley  almost  caressingly,  looking  up  at  him  a 
trifle  shyly,  but  with  smiling  lips  and  eyes — 

And  this  was  the  picture  which  was  in  the 
minds  of  Geraldine  and  Mrs.  Haight  when 
they  left  the  Cartons'  house  and  turned  to  walk 
homewards.  Cab-hire  is  expensive,  and  the 
cars  uncomfortably  crowded.  Besides,  walk- 
ing can  always  be  explained  as  the  result  of  a 
desire  for  exercise. 

For  a  time  neither  spoke.  They  trudged 
wearily  along  down  Madison  Avenue,  both 
busy  with  unpleasant  thoughts.  At  last  Mrs. 
Haight  said  bitterly: 

"Well,  Geraldine,  you've  managed  to  lose 
Drake  too,  it  seems !" 

Her  daughter  did  not  reply,  and  after  a 
while  she  went  on,  seeking  in  words  some  out- 
let, however  unsatisfactory,  for  the  venom 
which  had  been  accumulating  within  her  during 
the  past  hour: 

"I  can't  understand  what's  the  matter  with 
you;  you've  let  one  man  after  another  slip 
through  your  fingers,  and  heaven  knows  you 
haven't  any  time  to  waste!  If  you  don't  get 
some  one  this  season,  I  tell  you  frankly  you'll 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE     19 

have  to  have  nervous  prostration  or  go  to  your 
aunt  in  Sagwanack.  I've  kept  Phoebe  back 
for  two  years  on  your  account,  and  Elsie'll  be 
sixteen  in  a  couple  of  months." 

Geraldine  made  answer  quietly :  "I'll  go  to 
Aunt  Jenny's  to-morrow  if  you  want  me  to." 

"Don't  be  a  fool!  You  know  perfectly  well 
I've  spent  every  penny  I  could  rake  and  scrape 
together  on  your  clothes.  I  can't  go  now  and 
buy  others  for  Phoebe — I  haven't  even  paid  for 
all  yours.  I  did  think  you'd  be  settled  de- 
cently long  before  this,  and  able  to  help  me 
with  Phoebe  and  Elsie.  I  don't  know  what's 
going  to  become  of  you  all  when  your  father 
dies!" 

It  was  not  the  first  time  by  very  many  that 
Mrs.  Haight  had  talked  in  this  strain.  Al- 
most from  the  day  of  Geraldine's  birth  her 
mother  had  planned  and  schemed  "to  marry 
her  off  well";  now,  after  numerous  disappoint- 
ments, the  qualifying  adverb  had  been  dropped. 
It  was  Mrs.  Haight's  firm  belief  that  "any 
marriage  was  better  than  no  marriage"  for  a 
penniless  girl  of  good  social  position.  And 
according  to  the  standard  set  by  their  acquaint- 
ances, the  Haights  were  very  poor.  Every 
dollar  they  had  they  spent,  and  they  did  not 


20     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

know  what  it  was  to  be  out  of  debt.  It  was  a 
desire  to  use  every  penny  where  it  would  do  the 
most  good — i.e.,  make  the  most  show — that 
caused  Mrs.  Haight  to  sponge  on  the  people 
she  knew,  whenever  and  however  she  could. 
And  now  Geraldine,  at  twenty-six,  was  classed 
among  "the  old  girls,"  and  Phoebe  was  clamor- 
ing for  her  chance.  She  had  hoped  that  Ru- 
dolph Drake  would  solve  a  part  of  the  prob- 
lem, and  now  he  too  had  turned  his  back  and 
walked  away.  In  a  more  equable  mood,  she 
would  have  admitted  that  Geraldine  had  done 
her  best  to  prevent  his  defection,  but  at  the 
moment  she  felt  she  must  upbraid  some  one, 
and  it  was  safe  to  let  loose  her  anger  and 
disappointment  on  her  daughter. 

"May  I  inquire  what  you  propose  to  do?" 
she  went  on,  her  tone  querulous  beneath  its  sar- 
castic surface.  "You  must  live  somehow,  you 
know." 

"I  don't  think  it's  necessary,"  Geraldine's 
lips  and  brow  were  sullen.  The  reply  had 
been  instinctive,  not  consciously  borrowed. 
"Anyway — " 

"You  could  earn  your  own  living.  Of 
course.  I  was  sure  you'd  say  that!  And 
what  kind  of  a  living  would  it  be,  I'd  like  to 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE     21 

know?  As  I've  told  you  over  and  over  again, 
Geraldine,  the  one  profitable  business  for  a 
woman  is  marriage.  And  when  you  look 
around  and  see  the  girls  who've  been  able  to  get 
husbands  of  some  kind  or  other,  you  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  yourself.  You've  got  a  stun- 
ning figure,  you've  had  every  opportunity,  and 
here  you  are,  an  old  maid  on  my  hands!" 

Mrs.  Haight  had  switched  back  from  gener- 
alities to  the  main  theme,  and  on  this  she  con- 
tinued with  scarcely  a  pause  until  they  reached 
the  house,  and  Geraldine  was  able  to  take 
refuge  in  her  own  room,  behind  a  locked  door, 
there  to  yield  at  last  to  the  tears  she  had  long 
repressed.  For  she  had  been  deeply  hurt  that 
afternoon,  and  hurt  in  a  way  no  one  suspected, 
the  girl  who  stifled  her  sobs  among  the  pil- 
lows being  a  somewhat  different  person  from 
the  Geraldine  inexperienced  Nita  despised  and 
self-seeking  Mrs.  Haight  fancied  she  could 
perfectly  control.  We  do  not  always  under- 
stand people  quite  so  thoroughly  as  we  are 
prone  to  suppose. 

It  was  not  only  in  the  thoughts  of  this 
mother  and  daughter  that  Rudolph  Drake  oc- 
cupied a  prominent  place.  Nita  Wynne,  re- 


22     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

turning  home  from  the  dinner  to  the  receiving 
party  which  had  followed  the  reception,  dis- 
missed her  maid  and  sat  down  before  the 
pretty  ivory-  and  crystal-strewn  toilette  table 
in  her  own  pink  and  white,  chintz-hung  bed- 
room, that  she  might  think  of  him  and  of  the 
questions  he  suggested.  He  had  made  definite 
love  to  her  that  afternoon  and  in  the  brief  hour 
after  dinner,  but — had  he  meant  it?  Was  he 
serious,  or  only  trying  to  pass  the  time  pleas- 
antly? When  he  told  her  he  thought  of  her 
by  day  and  dreamed  of  her  by  night,  that  his 
one  and  only  desire  was  to  please  her,  was  it 
more  than  a  pretty  speech,  such  as  he  had  per- 
haps spoken  to  many  other  girls — to  Geraldine 
Haight,  for  instance?  The  ingenuous  scorn 
which  always  filled  her  at  sight  of  Geraldine's 
maneuvers  rose  again.  No  nice  girl  would  act 
in  that  way,  she  felt  sure;  nice  girls  didn't  do 
such  things.  Neither  did  they  wear  extremely 
low-cut  gowns,  like  Geraldine's,  nor  smoke 
cigarettes,  as  she  very  probably  did — and  Mrs. 
Ashurst  certainly!  She  wondered  why  the 
right  kind  of  people — by  which  she  meant  the 
well  born  and  well  bred — received  that  horrid 
woman,  with  her  gushing  talk,  her  rouge,  and 
her  farcical  divorce?  She  must  be  a  great 


INTRODUCING  MISS  WYNNE     23 

trial  to  Mr.  Drake !  Naturally  it  wouldn't  do 
for  him  even  to  hint  at  such  a  thing,  but  no 
doubt  he  disapproved  of  her — suffered  per- 
haps under  his  lively  exterior.  Her  own  fas- 
tidiousness made  her  shrink  from  the  thought 
of  there  ever  being  any  link  between  herself 
and  Mrs.  Ashurst,  as  it  made  her  resent  the 
idea  that  she  might  be  regarded  as  Geraldine 
Haight's  rival :  that  extenuating  circumstances 
might  exist  in  the  case  of  either  woman  never 
entered  her  mind.  But  Mr.  Drake — it  wasn't 
his  fault — 

She  would  have  been  honestly  indignant  had 
any  one  ventured  to  suggest  to  her  that 
Drake's  popularity,  the  fact  that  other  girls 
wanted  and  tried  to  get  him,  had  anything  to 
do  with  the  delight  she  felt  when  he  turned 
from  those  others  to  her;  even  more  indignant 
at  any  hint  that  his  physical  charm — his  height 
and  broad  shoulders,  his  merry  blue  eyes,  hand- 
some face,  and  debonair  manner — had  any  con- 
siderable share  in  the  attraction  he  undoubt- 
edly possessed  for  her,  an  attraction  she  was 
just  beginning  to  admit  to  herself.  Quite  un- 
consciously she  at  once  exalted  love  and  de- 
based it;  holding  high  her  ideal  of  its  mental 
and  spiritual  aspects,  turning  from  all  else  with 


24     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

distaste  as  from  an  evil,  necessary  perhaps,  but 
an  evil  nevertheless.  Hers  was  that  ardent, 
exacting  idealism  of  high-principled  youth 
which  looks  for  perfection — a  perfection 
shaped  in  accordance  with  its  own  untutored 
beliefs — and  will  tolerate  nothing  that  falls 
short  of  it,  nor  ever  question  its  own  ability  to 
pronounce  judgment. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   PERFECT   KNIGHT 

ON  the  following  evening  Nita  Wynne  and 
her  father  were  alone  at  dinner  in  their 
home  in  East  Sixty-fourth  Street.  The  house 
was  a  high-stooped  brownstone,  ugly  and 
gloomy  on  the  outside,  like  the  majority  of 
New  York  residences  built  during  the  Eighties. 
Within,  however,  it  was  charming,  for  Nita's 
mother  had  been  one  of  those  exceptional 
women  who  possess  an  innate  sense  of  line  and 
color — a  sense  her  daughter  had  inherited — 
and  she  had  made  her  house  at  once  comfort- 
able and  harmonious,  artistic  and  homelike. 
Since  her  death  Nita  had  kept  everything  ex- 
actly as  she  had  left  it,  and  although  the 
Wynnes,  according  to  New  York  ideas,  were 
not  rich,  and  their  establishment  was  but  a 
modest  one,  few  people  who  entered  their  house 
failed  to  like  it  or  to  be  swayed,  even  if  un- 
consciously, by  its  cheerful,  pleasant  at- 
mosphere. 

Over  the  rim  of  the  coffee  cup  whose  excel- 


26     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

lent  contents  he  was  sipping  with  due  apprecia- 
tion, Mr.  Wynne  regarded  his  daughter 
thoughtfully.  He  was  contemplating  the  do- 
ing of  something  that  would  affect  her  very 
nearly,  and  he  was  not  at  all  sure  what  her  re- 
sponse to  it  might  be.  If  she  chose,  she  could 
make  matters  decidedly  unpleasant.  In  the 
light  of  his  half-determination,  he  seemed  to 
see  her  with  a  new  clearness,  realizing  with  a 
sort  of  mental  shock  that  he  could  not  even 
conjecture  how  she  would  act  in  the  given,  or 
indeed  in  almost  any  situation.  He  was  not  in 
the  least  analytical,  and  heretofore  he  had  taken 
his  daughter  very  much  for  granted.  Now, 
partly  because  of  this  new  light,  partly  because 
of  certain  gossip  which  had  been  repeated  to 
him,  he  had  become  somewhat  abruptly  aware 
that  she  was  no  longer  a  child  to  be  petted  and 
easily  controlled,  but  a  girl  on  the  brink  of 
womanhood ;  and  one  endowed,  moreover,  with 
a  strongly  marked,  exceptionally  vigorous  per- 
sonality. Looking  at  her  from  his  altered 
point  of  view  almost  as  he  might  have  looked 
at  an  interesting  stranger,  he  saw  much  that 
pleased  and  much  that  disquieted  him.  He 
considered  her,  feature  by  feature :  the  mass  of 
wavy,  light-brown  hair  piled  high  on  the  small 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT        27 

head  and  falling  over  the  low  white  brow  in  a 
soft  cloud  and  a  significant  defiance  of  the  cur- 
rent fashions — hair  full  of  golden  glints,  each 
tiny  thread  of  it  seeming  to  have  an  independ- 
ent vitality  of  its  own ;  the  clearly  marked  eye- 
brows, many  shades  darker  than  the  hair, 
whose  pronounced  arch  gave  a  certain  alert 
look  to  the  whole  face;  the  rather  deeply  set, 
gray-green  eyes  with  their  black-penciled 
irises  and  clear,  fearlessly  direct  gaze.  The 
short,  straight  nose  had  sensitive  nostrils;  the 
rounded  chin,  in  which  there  was  just  a  sus- 
picion of  a  cleft,  exquisitely  completed  the  deli- 
cate oval  of  the  face ;  only  the  mouth  was  ques- 
tionable, not  yet  definitely  shaped  in  the  lines 
which  would  one  day  indicate  its  owner's  char- 
acter: it  was  flexible,  vividly  red,  deliciously 
fresh  and  young.  Significant  details,  many  of 
them;  yet  in  contemplating  them  thus  sep- 
arately the  essential  thing,  he  felt,  was  lost,  that 
essential  which  was  not  an  affair  of  tint  or 
curve,  indefinable  yet  somehow  making  one 
think  of  a  fountain  springing  upwards  toward 
the  sunshine — sparkling,  crystal-clear,  rain- 
bow-hued.  Eager,  swift  of  thought  and  of 
movement,  intensely,  dynamically  alive.  .  .  . 
Nita  had  finished  planning  the  dinner  cards 


she  meant  to  make  for  their  next  party;  she 
liked  to  do  them  and  often  relied  on  her  quaint 
or  comic  designs  to  start  conversation  and 
break  any  possible  ice.  Now  she  suddenly 
grew  conscious  of  the  long  silence  and  her 
father's  intent  scrutiny. 

"Well,  Dadsy,  what's  the  matter?  You've 
been  staring  at  me  for  the  last  five  minutes!" 
she  exclaimed  merrily. 

His  brows  relaxed,  and  he  smiled.  "I'm 
just  beginning  to  realize  that  I  have  a  grown- 
up daughter.  It's  a  terrifying  idea!" 

Her  answering  smile  was  a  trifle  uncertain, 
and  the  quick  color  rushed  into  her  cheeks. 
With  characteristic  impetuosity  she  had  leaped 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  must  have  heard  some 
of  the  talk  about  herself  and  Rudolph  Drake 
which  she  knew  was  flying  around.  That  he 
might  have  any  private  reasons  or  intentions 
never  occurred  to  her;  she  had  the  usual  un- 
questioning belief  of  youth  that  old  or  even 
middle  age  implies  a  state  which  will  alter  only 
as  it  is  inevitably  changed  by  the  advancing 
years.  And  the  fact  was  that  her  father  and 
herself  were  neither  so  fond  of  each  other  nor 
so  companionable  as  she  rather  naively  sup- 
posed. 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT         29 

But  although  she  had,  as  her  custom  was, 
leaped  to  a  conclusion,  it  was  not  an  entirely 
mistaken  one.  Mr.  Wynne  was  in  truth  think- 
ing that  if  this  affair  with  Rudolph  Drake 
should  result  in  marriage,  it  would  greatly  sim- 
plify his  own  position.  And  he  felt  a  little 
guilty,  for  though  Drake,  as  a  rising  and  astute 
young  man,  well  regarded  by  the  older  mem- 
bers of  the  firm  with  which  he  was  connected, 
was  by  no  means  an  undesirable  match  from 
one  standpoint,  there  were  incidents  in  his  per- 
sonal life,  certain  of  those  "affaires  de  cceur" 
mentioned  by  Mrs.  Ashurst,  that  were  really 
not  at  all — 

Mr.  Wynne  freed  his  mind  from  these  un- 
pleasant thoughts  with  a  mental  shake  of  an- 
noyance. He  always  declined  to  harbor  un- 
pleasant thoughts,  and  he  considered  the  sow- 
ing of  wild  oats  a  proper  and  necessary  exer- 
cise. Why  refuse  to  apply  the  theories  in 
which  he  believed  to  one  especial  young  man, 
merely  because  there  was  a  possibility  of  that 
young  man's  becoming  his  own  daughter's  hus- 
band? 

Yet  he  was  disagreeably  conscious  that  it 
was  only  because  it  would  suit  his  private 
plans  so  well  to  have  Nita  announce  her  en- 


30     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

gagement  that  he  was  ready  to  welcome  Ru- 
dolph Drake. 

While  these  ideas  darted  through  his  brain, 
Nita  was  speaking: 

"To  tell  the  truth,  Dadsy  dear,  it's  just  a 
wee  bit  terrifying  to  me  too,"  she  admitted  a 
little  shyly.  Her  recognition  of  her  own 
womanhood  had  become  closely  connected  in 
her  thoughts  with  those  iridescent  fancies 
which  had  gathered  around  Rudolph  Drake, 
and  the  addition  made  it  seem  a  trebly  delicate, 
perilous,  and  fascinating  subject. 

It  was  the  father  who  plunged.  "I  met 
Mrs.  Ashurst  yesterday — on  the  Avenue — and 
she  was  warning  me  to  look  out,  that  I  had  a 
most  attractive  and  charming  daughter.  .  .  ." 

His  smile  became  nervous  as  he  saw  the 
slight  stiffening  of  Nita's  delicate  features. 
She  hesitated  an  instant  and  then  said  with  that 
incisive  utterance  which  often  gave  an  edge  to 
her  words,  making  them  sound  far  more  em- 
phatic than  they  really  were : 

"I  wish  Mrs.  Ashurst  would  let  me  and  my 
affairs  alone!" 

To  her  own  ears  that  phrase  held  many  im- 
plications, the  thought  of  Rudolph  Drake's  re- 
lationship to  Mrs.  Ashurst  being  a  veritable 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT        31 

thorn  in  her  flesh.  She  had  all  the  usual  intol- 
erance of  youth  and  of  sheltered  feminine 
youth  at  that.  For  the  idealistic,  high-minded 
young  girl  is  far  more  exacting  in  her  demands 
that  other  people  conform  to  her  own  exalted 
standards,  far  less  likely  to  make  allowances, 
than  is  the  lad  of  similar  age  and  type ;  and  this 
because  of  the  simple  reason  that,  among  the 
well-to-do  at  least,  he  comes  into  contact  with 
realities  a  good  deal  sooner  than  does  she. 

"Don't  you  like  her?"  Mr.  Wynne  asked 
hurriedly. 

Nita  had  been  absent-mindedly  playing  with 
her  coffee  spoon.  Now  she  laid  it  down  and 
looked  across  at  him  with  frank,  clear  eyes,  as 
unwavering  as  her  speech. 

"No,  Dadsy  dear,  I  don't !  She  smokes  and 
makes  up  and  drinks  cocktails  and — and  every 
one  knows  that  she  and  Mr.  Ashurst  arranged 
their  divorce.  Nice  women  don't  do  such 
things." 

At  that  moment  Mr.  Wynne  came  to  a  de- 
cision. Thus  there  was  good  reason  why  it 
should  make  an  impression  on  him :  but  was  it 
an  echo  from  the  laughter  of  those  little  gods 
who  delight  in  irony  which  fixed  the  incident 
and  her  own  words  in  Nita's  subconsciousness, 


32     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

whence  they  were  one  day  to  arise  to  her  con- 
scious mind,  unaltered  and  unblurred? 

Certain  it  is  that  neither  had  any  place  in 
her  thoughts  on  that  crisp,  sunny  afternoon  a 
little  later  in  the  month  when  she  stopped  her 
hansom — the  day  of  the  all-conquering  taxi 
had  not  yet  arrived — before  an  old-fashioned 
house  in  East  Seventeenth  Street,  fronting 
Stuyvesant  Square.  She  was  going  to  tea 
with  the  Misses  Van  Vechten,  and  doing  it  at 
some  small  sacrifice  of  time  and  convenience, 
since  the  winter  season  was  then  in  full  swing, 
and  her  days  and  nights  crowded.  The  house, 
formerly  a  dignified  private  mansion,  retained 
much  of  its  aristocratic  air,  though  it  was  now 
divided  into  four  apartments.  The  two  little 
ladies,  first  and  only  tenants  of  the  third  floor, 
had  lived  there  so  long  that  to  Nita  the  place 
seemed  to  have  become  a  part  of  them — the 
shell  without  which  they  would  cease  to  be  quite 
themselves. 

She  was  welcomed  affectionately,  and  the 
violets  she  had  brought  accepted  with  gracious, 
though  restrained  thanks.  For  according  to 
Miss  Cornelia's  code,  "a  lady"  was  always  quiet 
and  never  made  a  fuss  about  anything;  pleas- 
ures and  pains  should  alike  be  met  with  dignity 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT        33 

and  calm  self-control.  Yet  to  the  sisters, 
vivid,  impetuous  Nita  represented  embodied 
youth,  while  the  harmless  gossip  she  retailed  to 
them  was,  save  for  a  wedding  or  an  occasional 
reception,  the  most  exciting  thing  in  their  quiet 
lives.  They  were  members  of  a  tiny  circle  of 
widows  and  spinsters,  all  poor,  all  well  born, 
and  all  fond  of  discussing  and  lamenting  over 
the  decadence  of  the  society  to  which  they  had 
once  belonged.  Nita's  anecdotes  thus  pro- 
vided themes  for  many  a  mildly  animated  dis- 
cussion over  tea  tables  rich  in  Colonial  silver 
and  eggshell  china. 

But  this  afternoon  she  had  surprisingly  little 
to  tell,  and  her  gay  chatter  faltered  and 
stopped  every  now  and  then.  For  her  daily 
life  was  becoming  more  and  more  a  mere  back- 
ground to  her  meetings  with  Rudolph  Drake, 
and  of  these  she  could  not  speak.  The  two  lit- 
tle ladies,  watching  her  with  adoring  and  undis- 
cerning  eyes,  wondered  if  she  were  quite  well, 
although  the  appreciation  she  showed  for  the 
delicately  browned  muffins  and  luscious  plum 
cake — plum  cake  such  as  our  great-grand- 
mothers used  to  make — should  have  com- 
pletely reassured  them.  It  was  during  one  of 
these  pauses  that  Miss  Cornelia  remarked,  in 


34     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

the  casual  tone  she  regarded  as  appropriate  to 
the  topic,  any  mention  of  money  being  a  thing 
approaching  dangerously  near  to  vulgarity: 

"Nita  dear,  I  sent  a  note  to  Mr.  Drake  the 
other  day.  It  occurred  to  both  of  us  upon 
reflection  that  it  had  been  far  from  proper  to 
speak  to  him  about  the  North  Eastern  that 
Saturday  afternoon  at  Mrs.  Carton's  tea.  I 
trust  he  did  not  appear  vexed,  following  our 
departure?" 

"Oh,  no,  not  a  bit."  The  fib  was  a  very  little 
one,  Nita  thought,  and  besides,  it  had  been  the 
interruption  to  their  tete-a-tete  which  had  an- 
noyed him,  not  the  asking  of  his  advice  1 

"He  seems  to  be  a  most  amiable  young  man, 
just  as  his  father  was,"  Miss  Cornelia  com- 
mented gently,  a  far-away  look  in  her  soft 
brown  eyes.  She  paused  an  instant  with  an 
unconscious,  tiny  sigh,  and  then  added:  "Sis- 
ter reminded  me  that  it  is  his  profession  to  ad- 
vise people,  a  thing  for  which  he  is  accustomed 
to  receive — er — pecuniary  remuneration.  Sis- 
ter has  such  a  keen  intellect !  Sol  wrote  and 
asked  him  to  be  so  good  as  to  pardon  my 
ignorance  and  to  tell — er — to  tell  me — " 

Nita's  sunshiny  smile  was  very  tender.  "To 
tell  you  how  much  you  owed  him?" 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT        35 

She  knew  Miss  Cornelia  to  be  quite  in- 
capable of  completing  such  a  sentence  unaided. 
Moreover,  a  new  idea  had  darted  into  her  mind. 
Was  it  possible  that  once,  long  ago,  there  had 
been — something — between  Miss  Cornelia  and 
Rudolph  Drake's  father?  Poor,  dear,  weak 
Miss  Cornelia,  so  timid  and  nervous,  terrified 
by  spiders  and  thunderstorms,  was  just  the  sort 
of  person  to  let  happiness  slip  away  from  her 
through  want  of  courage  to  take  it. 

The  little  lady  carefully  adjusted  the  fine 
thread-lace  ruffles  over  her  delicate  wrists  and 
thin,  blue-veined  hands  before  she  spoke. 
"He  wrote  a  very  kind  note  in  reply — a  trifle 
brusque  in  its  expressions,  perhaps,  but  I  un- 
derstand that  it  is  no  longer  regarded  as  un- 
civil to  be  brusque  in  affairs  of  business.  He 
said  it  would  always  be  a  pleasure  to  him  to  be 
of  assistance  to  us,  although  he  was  far  from 
certain  of  the  value  of  his  advice.  So  admir- 
ably modest !" 

"Do  you  think,  Sister,"  queried  Miss  Sophia, 
speaking  for  the  first  time  in  at  least  half  an 
hour,  "do  you  think  Mr.  Drake  at  all  re- 
sembles our  Donald?" 

Miss  Cornelia  gravely  considered  this  prob- 
lem during  several  seconds.  "Not  resembles, 


36     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

perhaps ;  not  exactly  resembles.  Mr.  Drake  is 
fair,  you  know,  and  our  Donald  very  dark. 
Yet  there  is  a  something,  a  certain  aristocratic 
—  My  dear  Nita," — Miss  Cornelia  spoke  al- 
most abruptly,  and  with  a  nearer  approach  to 
something  like  excitement  than  Nita  had 
ever  before  known  her  to  show — "my  dear 
Nita,  we  haven't  told  you  our  great  news. 
Our  nephew  Donald — poor  Serena's  only  child, 
you  know — is  coming  back  to  New  York !  He 
intends  to  make  it  his  home." 

"How  delighted  you  must  be!"  Nita's  re- 
sponse was  sympathetic,  but  her  thoughts  were 
very  far  away  from  the  unknown  Donald. 
Mr.  Drake  must  have  written  very  nicely;  he 
was  an  extremely  busy  person,  but  not  too  busy 
to  be  considerate.  She  was  glad  he  had  ad- 
vised dear  Miss  Cornelia — and  it  was  kind  of 
him,  for  he  didn't  like  to  give  advice,  especially 
to  women — 

She  suddenly  realized  that  Miss  Cornelia 
was  just  finishing  an  explanation,  not  one  word 
of  which  had  she  heard. 

"And  so  then  Donald  accepted  this  position 
as  assistant  editor  of  the  Colonial  Magazine" 
she  was  saying. 

"Isn't  that  splendid!"  Nita  could  only  hope 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT        37 

she  wasn't  blundering.  Though  she  had  not 
heard  Miss  Cornelia's  explanation,  she  knew 
the  Colonial  Magazine  to  be  one  of  traditions 
and  dignity,  which  prided  itself  on  its  literary 
standards  and  standing.  For  a  young  man 
who  couldn't  possibly  be  over  twenty-six  or 
seven — for  Serena  Van  Vechten  had  been 
much  the  youngest  of  the  three  sisters — to  have 
obtained  the  post  of  assistant  editor  on  such  a 
periodical  was  no  doubt  matter  for  congratula- 
tion. But  she  had  a  vague  impression  that 
editors  in  general  were  a  rather  stuffy,  priggish 
set  of  men — very  like  schoolmasters. 

"Mr.  Matthews  is  rather  vexed  about  it," 
Miss  Cornelia  continued.  "He  wished  Don- 
ald to  enter  upon  a  business  career.  Indeed,  I 
understand  he  offered  to  procure  him  a  po- 
sition with  the  Trans-Continental  Trust  Com- 
pany. Mr.  Matthews  is  intimately  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Carstairs,  the  President  of  the  Com- 
pany." 

"Mr.  Matthews  said  something  to  me  about 
expecting  a  great-nephew,  and  of  course  I've 
always  known  you  were  related  by  marriage, 
but  I  didn't  think  of  his  nephew  being  yours 
too."  Nita  was  doing  her  best  not  only  to 
seem  but  to  be  interested. 


38     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"He  is  Donald's  great-uncle  on  his  father's 
side.  He  is  inclined  to  like  Donald  and  to 
further  his  fortunes,  but  I  fear  that  his  is  a 
somewhat — er — dictatorial  nature,  and  our 
dear  boy  has  an  independent  spirit,"  Miss  Cor- 
nelia answered  proudly. 

This  statement  contained  an  hiatus  or  two 
which  Nita  easily  filled:  she  knew  Mr.  Atkin- 
son Matthews  to  be  an  elderly,  rich,  and  child- 
less, almost  kinless  widower.  A  grandnephew 
whose  "fortunes  he  was  inclined  to  further" 
might  reasonably  regard  himself  as  a  young 
man  with  most  satisfactory  prospects  so  long 
as  he  did  not  clash  with  the  old  gentleman's 
habit  of  considering  his  will  the  one  altogether 
righteous  law. 

The  doorbell  tinkled — electricity  was  a 
parvenu  the  ladies  refused  to  recognize — and 
Miss  Cornelia  blinked  nervously,  conscious  of 
the  little  conspiracy  wordlessly  concocted  be- 
tween her  sister  and  herself.  Nita  heard 
colored  Betsy  speaking  in  her  most  dulcet  com- 
pany tones,  and  expected  to  see  old  Mrs.  Van 
Tighe  or  Miss  Pauristaine;  but  it  was  neither 
of  these  who  entered. 

A  quick,  yet  oddly  dragging  step  sounded  in 
the  hall,  and  Betsy  threw  open  the  heavy  ma- 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT        39 

hogany  door  with  a  flourish.  "It's  Mr.  Don- 
ald, ma'am,"  she  announced  breathlessly. 

Donald  Forsythe  was  half  way  across  the 
dimly  lighted  room  before  he  became  aware 
that  his  aunts  had  a  guest.  And  if  Nita  was 
surprised  to  see  a  vigorous  young  man  appear 
instead  of  fat  Miss  Pauristaine  or  fragile  Mrs. 
Van  Tighe,  her  surprise  was  mild  compared 
with  his.  For  she  was  a  rather  astonishing 
figure  to  find  in  that  quaint  room,  with  its 
ancient  portraits  and  ancient  furniture,  this 
young  and  vivid  girl. 

Miss  Cornelia  introduced  them  with  tremu- 
lous formality.  Her  heart  was  fluttering,  and 
she  was  nearly  speechless,  now  that  the  impor- 
tant moment  had  actually  come;  the  moment 
for  the  beginning  of  the  romance  she  had 
long  planned  in  her  innocently  sentimental 
thoughts.  But  alas  for  her  hopes !  After  the 
first  surprised  scrutiny  was  over,  her  hero  and 
heroine  paid  but  little  attention  to  each  other. 
Forsythe  decided  that  Miss  Wynne  was  much 
too  excitable  and  disturbing.  Very  pretty, 
certainly;  but  a  girl  who  in  all  probability 
would  presently  develop  into  one  of  those  rest- 
less modern  women  who  want  to  know  and 
to  do,  instead  of  remaining,  madonna-like  and 


40     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

serene,  above  the  battle.  She  only  thought  it 
a  pity  he  was  so  ugly  and  had  that  slight  limp. 

Her  brain  and  fancy  were  occupied  by  an- 
other man — one  gallant,  athletic,  debonair. 
And  she  did  not  suspect  how  much  that  at- 
tractive exterior  had  to  do  with  the  knightly 
character  she  attributed  to  him,  a  character 
principally  constructed  out  of  the  tiny  inci- 
dents of  his  advice  and  note  to  Miss  Cornelia. 
She  knew  the  Misses  Van  Vechten  would  re- 
gard as  "a  trifle  brusque"  any  communica- 
tion which  ended  "Yours  truly"  and  not  "Per- 
mit me,  dear  madam,  with  the  deepest  re- 
spect," and  so  on  for  at  least  a  couple  of  lines. 
It  was  only  a  very  tiny  seed  of  faith  which  had 
been  planted  by  these  apparently  trivial  inci- 
dents, but  it  had  fallen  on  prepared  soil,  where 
it  sprouted  and  flourished  with  amazing  rap- 
idity. Poor,  affectionate,  sentimental  Miss 
Cornelia!  In  the  imagination  of  a  romantic, 
beauty-loving  young  girl,  what  chance  could 
Donald  Forsythe,  plain  of  face  and  lame,  pos- 
sibly have  had  against  gay  and  gallant  Ru- 
dolph Drake?  Little,  at  best;  and  she  herself 
had  practically  destroyed  that  little. 

But  it  was  Donald  Forsythe  who  gave  the 
finishing  touch  to  the  knightly  figure  of  Nita's 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT        41 

fancy,  adding  courage  to  chivalry.  Miss  Cor- 
nelia was  speaking  of  the  North  Eastern  and 
"Mr.  Drake's  great  kindness  in  advising 
them,"  when  Forsythe  asked: 

"Is  that  Rudolph  Drake,  Mrs.  Ashurst's 
brother?" 

To  impatient  Nita,  Miss  Cornelia  seemed 
extraordinarily  slow  in  answering.  What  did 
this  nephew  of  hers  know  about — him? 

"Yes,  Rudolph  Drake:  his  father  was 
Thomas  Drake,  you  know,  who  married  Edith 
Martin.  Is  he  a  friend  of  yours,  Donald?" 

"No ;  it  was  Ashurst  who  told  me  about  him. 
I  used  to  know  Ashurst." 

"Ah!  How  interesting!  And  what  did 
Mr.  Ashurst  say?"  queried  Miss  Cornelia. 

Forsythe  hesitated.  He  had  spoken 
thoughtlessly,  and  now  found  himself  in  some- 
thing of  a  quandary.  For  the  repetition  of 
even  a  tithe  of  what  Ashurst  had  told  him 
would  have  shocked  Miss  Cornelia  unspeak- 
ably, had  he  on  his  own  part  been  willing  to 
betray  a  confidence,  which  he  certainly  was 
not.  Then  came  another  memory,  bringing 
relief.  Quite  ignorant  of  the  effect  of  his 
words  on  one  of  his  hearers,  he  said  cheer- 
fully: 


42     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Why,  it  seems  that  Drake  saved  Ashurst's 
life  once,  when  they  were  out  sailing  together. 
Something  went  wrong,  the  boom  hit  Ashurst, 
and  overboard  he  went.  He  can't  swim,  and 
he  might  have  departed  from  this  world  with 
rather  unpleasant  promptness  if  Drake  hadn't 
jumped  in  after  him  and  hauled  him  out." 

"How  dreadfully  Mr.  Ashurst  must  feel 
now!"  Nit  a  exclaimed — and  flushed  a  deep, 
embarrassed  pink.  For  the  phrase  was  a  di- 
rect reference  to  the  Ashurst  divorce ;  any  men- 
tion of  such  a  thing,  and  especially  before  a 
man,  the  Misses  Van  Vechten  would  consider 
most  improper ;  and  indeed  in  her  own  opinion 
it  was  "not  quite  nice." 

"You  mean  since  the  divorce?"  remarked 
Forsythe  calmly.  "Oh,  well,  the  Ashursts 
never  got  along  together,  and  they're  much 
happier  apart." 

He  had  been  away  from  New  York  for 
many  years,  first  at  Harvard,  then  abroad, 
and  he  did  not  as  yet  quite  know  his  aunts. 

"My — dear — Donald!"  Miss  Cornelia  ex- 
claimed in  a  tone  and  with  a  look  which  con- 
veyed a  rebuke  for  such  heretical  ideas  and 
also  a  warning  that  a  young  girl  was  present. 

Forsythe  gave  Nita  a  quick,  half  smiling, 


THE  PERFECT  KNIGHT        43 

half  apologetic  glance  and  turned  his  atten- 
tion to  the  plum  cake,  reminding  himself  that 
the  freedom  of  speech  to  which  he  was  accus- 
tomed in  his  own  world  of  artists  and  writers 
"wouldn't  go  here."  She  met  his  look 
proudly,  a  certain  wistful  courage  in  her  eyes 
that  made  him  wonder  rather  hazily  whether 
she  would  not  after  all  be  justified  in  chafing 
a  bit  against  the  conventions  which  walled  her 
round.  But  it  was  in  truth  only  a  reflection 
of  the  picture  in  her  mind — the  picture  of  Ru- 
dolph Drake,  straight  and  strong  and  daunt- 
less, leaping  overboard  to  save  a  drowning 
man.  The  girl's  own  brave  spirit  thrilled  in 
response  to  the  dramatic  scene  thus  reenacted 
in  her  thoughts.  "Without  fear  and  with- 
out reproach."  The  splendid  old  phrase  sang 
in  her  brain.  A  modern  Bayard  .  .  .  her 
Bayard! 


CHAPTER  III 

ONE   MAN   AND   TWO   MAIDS 

DURING  the  next  few  days  Nita  thought 
much  and  often  about  that  episode  of 
Ashurst's  rescue.  Her  active  imagination 
quickly  expanded  and  elaborated  Forsythe's 
somewhat  meager  narrative;  insensibly  the 
danger  and  the  courage  alike  increased  until 
their  proportions  became  heroic,  and  Rudolph 
Drake  "a  very  parfit  gentil  knight."  Almost 
every  evening  she  met  him  at  some  festivity  or 
other,  and  this,  he  gave  her  plainly  to  under- 
stand, was  the  result  of  design,  not  accident. 
However,  chance  so  ordered  it  that  they  were 
never  alone  together  for  more  than  a  minute 
or  two  at  a  time,  giving  him  scant  opportunity 
for  verbal  wooing.  But  there  are  other  ways 
than  that  of  words,  and  when,  on  returning 
home  late  one  afternoon  from  the  usual  round 
of  teas,  Nita  found  a  florist's  box  awaiting  her, 
a  box  which  contained  a  delicately  fragrant 
bouquet  of  lilies-of-the-valley,  she  did  not  need 
even  a  glance  at  the  accompanying  card  to  tell 


ONE  MAN  AND  TWO  MAIDS     45 

her  the  name  of  the  donor.  So  it  was  with  his 
flowers  at  her  breast  and  his  transfigured 
image  in  her  thoughts  that  she  went  forth  to 
the  dance  given  by  Mrs.  Bartlett,  then  the 
acknowledged  leader  of  New  York  society,  a 
woman  who  had  many  predecessors,  but  no 
successor. 

She  was  a  little  late,  and  Jimmie  Dane,  her 
partner,  was  watching  for  her  near  the  en- 
trance to  the  ballroom,  although  the  cotillion, 
which  was  to  be  danced  before  supper,  had  not 
yet  been  called.  The  sight  of  him  reminded 
her  that  she  had  been  guilty  of  a  breach  of 
etiquette  in  not  wearing  the  flowers  he  had  sent 
her.  But  those  heavy  American  Beauty  roses 
— and  Jimmie  was  an  old  friend,  as  well  as  one 
of  the  best-natured  of  mortals. 

"Hello,  Nital"  he  exclaimed.  "Gee,  but 
you're  a  peach,  all  right!" 

Nita  laughed  happily,  well  pleased.  The 
mirror  had  already  told  her  that  excitement 
had  made  her  eyes  and  her  complexion  un- 
usually brilliant,  but  Jimmie's  assurance  was 
none  the  less  welcome.  She  very  much  wanted 
to  look  her  best  just  then. 

"Thanks,  Jimmie.  What  an  inordinate 
flatterer  you  are!  And  you're  not  angry  with 


46     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

me  for  being  late  and  putting  your  flowers  in 
water  instead  of  wearing  them?  They  were 
so  superb  I  wanted  to  keep  them." 

Which  was  quite  true,  if  not  the  whole 
truth. 

Jimmie  grinned.  "Oh,  that's  all  right! 
You're  not  late,  but  Caroline  Lacy  had  her 
hooks  out  for  me,  and  I  wasn't  going  to  be 
grabbed." 

As  the  only  son  of  a  multimillionaire,  Jim- 
mie Dane  had  troubles  of  his  own. 

Nita,  who  knew  that  Caroline  Lacy  be- 
longed to  the  huntress  tribe  of  which  she  con- 
sidered Geraldine  a  member,  met  his  glance 
gayly,  her  eyes  dancing  with  fun.  She  was 
glad  he  was  not  provoked,  both  on  her  own  ac- 
count and  because  she  wanted  to  coax  him  into 
dancing  at  least  once  with  Florence  Carton — 
a  dance  with  Jimmie  Dane  meant,  in  those 
days,  a  good  deal  to  a  debutante.  And  she  did 
not  realize  how  very  difficult  it  would  have  been 
for  any  man  to  be  provoked  with  her  that 
night,  so  sweet  and  radiant  was  she,  so  ex- 
quisitely touched  with  a  new,  ineffable  gentle- 
ness which  made  that  swift  eagerness  of  hers 
seem  like  something  bright  sparkling  through 
pearly  tinted  gossamer. 


ONE  MAN  AND  TWO  MAIDS     47 

Drake,  dancing  now  with  Geraldine  Haight, 
saw  her  enter,  saw  the  lilies,  and  exulted.  He 
had  always  been  easily  successful  with  women 
— women  of  many  a  different  kind  and  class — 
but  Nita  was  unlike  those  others,  fastidious, 
proud,  with  an  indefinable,  elusive  forbiddance 
behind  her  quick  interest  and  ready  sympathy 
which  made  her  seem  doubly  desirable.  It 
would  be  something  to  break  down  the  de- 
fenses of  this  dainty,  tantalizing  maiden, 
this  most  perplexing  blend  of  fire  and 
snow! 

Fire  and  snow;  unsullied  in  thought  and 
word  and  deed.  It  would  be  no  small  achieve- 
ment to  win  her  trust — and  to  hold  it.  She 
would  expect  a  great  deal  of  the  man  she  mar- 
ried, and  he — well,  he  had  done  a  number  of 
those  things  he  ought  not  to  have  done;  there 
was  no  denying  that  fact!  But  it  was  a  fact 
about  which,  since  it  belonged  to  the  past,  she 
need  never  know  anything,  and  with  her  be- 
lief in  him  as  a  stimulus  he  felt  he  could,  and 
inwardly  swore  that  he  would,  come  up  to  the 
scratch.  His  muscles  stiffening  with  resolve, 
he  unconsciously  tightened  his  hold  on  the 
partner  he  had  forgotten,  and  Geraldine  at 
once  yielded  to  his  arm.  It  was  this  too  pro- 


48     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

nounced  yielding  of  hers  which  made  him  sud- 
denly aware  that  he  held  her  more  closely  em- 
braced than  was  the  custom  at  that  time,  when 
the  "bunny  hug"  was  still  unknown  to  fame 
and  fashion.  With  her  rather  voluptuous  type 
of  good  looks  she  was  decidedly  alluring,  and 
he  not  at  all  averse  to  accepting  all  she  would 
give — until  it  occurred  to  him  that  Nita 
Wynne's  eyes  might  be  upon  them.  A  vague 
discomfort,  not  altogether  unrelated  to  shame, 
assailed  him ;  dimly  he  felt,  rather  than  under- 
stood, that  he  was  even  now  falling  below  her 
standard,  the  standard  he  had  promised  him- 
self to  live  up  to.  His  arm  relaxed,  and  Ger- 
aldine  paled  a  little ;  no  words  could  have  hurt 
and  humiliated  her  as  did  this  implied  rejec- 
tion— a  rejection  which  wounded  something 
far  deeper  than  pride. 

Nita,  gliding  past  with  Dwight  Brainerd, 
noticed  Geraldine's  pallor  and  Drake's  ab- 
stracted air.  They  were  among  the  many 
apparently  unimportant  things  destined 
to  return  to  her  mind  in  the  years  to 
come. 

Soon  the  cotillion  was  called,  and  ribbon, 
tissue  paper,  and  tinsel  trophies — balls  and 
banners,  racquets  and  scarfs  and  parasols,  pink 


and  blue  and  many-tinted — fluttered  on  the 
arms  and  over  the  heads  of  the  dancers,  adding 
more  color  to  the  gay  scene  reflected  in  the 
smilax-wreathed  mirrors  at  which  more  than 
one  girl,  anxious  or  triumphant,  glanced  in 
passing. 

Blithe  and  buoyant  Nita  was  too  good  a 
dancer,  as  well  as  too  pretty,  ever  to  lack 
partners,  though  the  general  fondness  for 
dancing,  as  every  one  agreed  and  most  women 
deplored,  was  waning  fast,  and  the  struggle  to 
obtain  enough  men  to  go  around  was  giving 
gray  hairs  to  many  an  anxious  hostess.  Drake 
sought  her  out  more  than  once  with  tribute  of 
be-ribboned  favors,  but  save  for  her  pretty, 
demure  thanks  for  the  flowers,  they  scarcely 
spoke  while  they  danced  together  through  the 
various  ingenious  figures  commanded  by 
Monty  West,  most  popular  of  cotillion  lead- 
ers. Nita  felt  as  though  she  were  moving 
through  an  enchanted  dream-world  where  one 
must  go  softly,  lest  the  spell  be  broken.  It 
was  all  rainbow-hued  to  her,  shimmering,  im- 
palpable as  mist:  and  this  rainbow-tinted  mist 
suffused  and  transformed  all  things,  within 
and  without.  Her  every  thought  and  sense 
was  caressed,  bewildered  by  it.  The  people 


about  her,  she  herself,  were  no  longer  flesh- 
and-blood  creatures  dwelling  on  the  matter- 
of-fact  old  earth,  but  the  transformed  inhabi- 
tants of  a  wondrous  realm  where  all  was  light 
and  color,  music  and  joy  and  smooth  rhythmic 
motion. 

When  after  supper  she  found  herself  alone 
with  Drake  in  the  conservatory,  it  all  seemed 
part  of  the  dream.  The  perfume  of  moist 
earth  and  flowers,  the  tinkle  of  water  falling 
from  a  spray  into  a  little  marble  basin,  the  cool 
dusk  of  this  place  where  shaded  lights  were 
cunningly  concealed  amid  the  embowering 
foliage — all  these  were  appropriate  as  the  sigh 
of  the  summer  breeze  over  a  daisy-pied 
meadow.  And  it  was  only  an  intensification 
of  the  enchantment  that  Drake  was  beside  her 
on  the  marble  seat,  his  hands  clenched  together 
on  his  crossed  knees  until  the  knuckles  showed 
white,  speaking  passionate,  beseeching  words 
which  seemed  to  penetrate  her  whole  being, 
filling  it  with  a  delicious  joy.  She  rather  felt 
than  heard  what  he  was  saying;  his  voice,  his 
words  were  like  music  to  which  all  her  senses 
responded.  .  .  . 

He  was  calling  her  his  Snow  Queen,  his 
dearest,  the  only  woman  on  earth  he  ever  had 


ONE  MAN  AND  TWO  MAIDS     51 

or  ever  could  really  love ;  declaring  his  willing- 
ness to  die  at  her  bidding,  to  give  the  world  for 
her  smile,  to  do  anything  and  everything. 

"You're  my  Snow  Queen,  my  saint — I  adore 
you!  Marry  me,  and  I'll  do  everything  you 
say.  I'll  make  you  happy,  I'll  love  you  al- 
ways, always — oh,  my  darling — "  His  voice 
died  away  in  a  hoarse  whisper. 

It  was  the  knight  of  her  dreams  who  was 
pleading,  the  Prince  Charming  every  normal 
girl  waits  and  hopes  for  until  life  teaches  her 
to  prefer  a  man.  Impulsive,  undisciplined,  in 
love  with  romance  and  with  the  glamour  of 
debonair  look  and  presence,  tingling  too  with 
triumph  that  this  man  whom  so  many  had 
striven  in  vain  to  win  should  declare  himself 
her  lover,  she  seemed  to  float  in  joy,  soaring 
aloft  in  the  rose-colored  mist. 

And  this  dream  sensation  of  hers  showed 
itself  upon  her  face  in  an  ethereal  expression 
which  made  Rudolph  Drake  feel  that  the  gates 
of  Heaven  had  indeed  swung  open  and  a  white- 
robed  angel  of  the  Lord  come  down.  He  lit- 
erally trembled  before  her,  this  man  who  knew 
the  seamy  side  of  passion  so  well,  this  man  with 
the  blotted  record  and  the  reputation  for  busi- 
ness "astuteness."  He  did  not  venture  to 


52     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

touch  her;  the  very  thought  of  kisses  seemed 
almost  sacrilegious. 

But  the  wonder  lasted  only  a  moment,  and 
Drake  at  least  came  back  to  earth  with  a  shock 
as  voices  sounded  near  by,  and  Monty  West 
appeared,  searching  for  Nita.  Drake  could 
have  annihilated  him  with  pleasure,  and 
Monty,  perfectly  aware  of  the  fact,  sympa- 
thized heartily.  To  take  himself  off,  however, 
would  have  been  altogether  too  obvious,  and  he 
could  not  think  up  a  plausible  excuse  on  the 
instant.  He  actually  stammered  out  his  con- 
ventional : 

"I  think  this  is  my  dance?" 

Nita,  sojourner  in  Fairyland,  could  not  re- 
ply in  words,  but  only  rise  assentingly.  Be- 
sides, her  inherited  code  demanded  that  each 
step  forward  be  taken  by  the  male. 

It  was  already  so  late  that  Drake  knew  he 
would  not  have  another  opportunity  of  being 
alone  with  her  that  evening.  Either  twenty- 
four  hours'  suspense,  or  a  quick  forcing  of  the 
issue — 

He  spoke  hurriedly,  and  just  a  little  breath- 
lessly. 

"May  I  come  to-morrow,  then?" 

She  stooped  to  pick  up  her  fluffy  train;  vol- 


ONE  MAN  AND  TWO  MAIDS     53 

uminous  skirts  were  the  fashion,  and  hers 
spread  far  out  over  the  floor  in  billowy  waves 
of  white  chiffon.  Looking  down  at  it  so  that 
the  long  lashes  hid  her  eyes,  she  answered 
quietly,  albeit  a  trifle  tremulously: 

"Yes;  to-morrow — at  five." 

It  was  a  promise ;  he  felt  sure  she  would  not 
have  permitted  him  to  come  had  she  intended 
to  refuse  him.  This  was  virtually  then1  be- 
trothal— with  Monty  West,  noted  cotillion 
leader  and  already  entered  upon  the  career 
which  was  one  day  to  be  accurately  described 
as  "lurid,"  looking  on  and  wishing  himself  a 
thousand  miles  away. 

He  presently  confided  the  story  of  his  dis- 
comfort to  Phil  Lacy. 

"There  I  stood,  feeling  like  an  ass,  and 
Drake  glaring  at  me  for  all  he  was  worth. 
But  I  tell  you  what,  Phil,  that  little  girl's  got 
pluck!  Didn't  she  up  and  make  a  date  with 
him  right  under  my  very  nose,  and  her  eyes 
so  bright  afterwards  you  didn't  dare  look  at 
'em!  It's  wedding  presents  and  rice,  all 
right,  all  right!" 

Monty,  a  kindly  soul  at  heart,  meant  no 
harm  and  had  only  indulged  a  natural  loquac- 
ity; but  Phil  Lacy  was  made  of  very  different 


54     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

stuff.  Wherefore  he  immediately  asked  Ger- 
aldine  to  dance  and  proceeded  to  tell  her — with 
additions — what  Monty  had  just  related  to 
him.  According  to  his  version,  Nita  was  ac- 
tually in  Drake's  arms  at  the  moment  of 
Monty's  entrance. 

While  he  talked  he  watched  Geraldine 
closely,  but  if  he  hoped  to  see  her  flinch  he  was 
disappointed.  She  was  prepared;  for  she  had 
not  been  blind  to  Drake's  joyous,  exultant  look 
as  he  came  out  of  the  conservatory,  and  she 
had  herself  well  in  hand.  If  there  was  a  sha- 
dow in  her  blue  eyes,  and  if  her  indifference 
was  a  trifle  overdone,  these  were  signs  Phil 
Lacy  was  not  clever  enough  to  see.  So  he  de- 
cided that  Geraldine  was  "hard  as  they  make 
'em,"  and  took  care  to  impart  his  opinion  and 
the  reason  for  it  to  as  many  people  as  he  could 
induce  to  listen  to  him.  Within  an  hour,  Nita 
Wynne's  engagement  to  Rudolph  Drake  was 
an  acknowledged  fact  to  a  large  section  of 
New  York  society.  And  no  one  paused  to  re- 
flect that  had  the  girl  thus  discovered  with 
Drake,  for  of  course  Phil  Lacy's  version  had 
been  accepted  as  the  correct  one,  chanced  to 
be  Geraldine  Haight,  or  almost  any  other,  in- 
deed, than  Nita  Wynne,  the  whole  affair  would 


ONE  MAN  AND  TWO  MAIDS     55 

have  been  regarded  simply  as  an  excellent 
joke,  not  as  any  assurance  of  an  approaching 
marriage. 

Drake  himself,  slowly  recovering  from  the 
intoxication  of  Nita's  promise,  began  to  guess 
the  reason  for  the  smiles  and  glances,  the  whis- 
perings and  general  aspect  of  "We  know,  but 
of  course  we're  not  going  to  say  anything," 
and  his  triumphant  air  became  a  little  more 
pronounced.  A  chance  phrase  or  two  gave 
him  a  clew  to  the  story  which  was  going  the 
rounds ;  but  the  thought  of  kisses,  though  still 
breath-taking,  was  no  longer  quite  so  over- 
whelming as  it  had  once  been.  Nita  had  lost 
something,  become  less  an  object  of  wonder 
and  of  reverence  to  him,  the  instant  he  felt 
sure  of  her. 

But  he  was  very  happy;  even  more  happy 
than  exultant. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MISS  CORNELIA'S  CODE 

ACCORDING  to  her  own  theory  of  what 
was  right  and  proper  in  a  situation  such 
as  hers,  Nita  should  have  lain  awake  all  night. 
Instead  of  which  she  fell  asleep  almost  as  soon 
as  her  pretty  head  touched  the  pillow,  and 
awoke  only  when  the  breeze,  blowing  the  shade 
forward,  let  a  long  shaft  of  sunlight  into  the 
room.     She  was  glad  to  see  the  sunshine,  glad 
that  this  day  of  days  should  be  bright  and  clear 
and  beautiful.     For  on  this  day  she  would 
give    Rudolph    Drake    her    promise,    would 
pledge  herself  to  him  for  life.     In  her  eyes  an 
engagement  was  only  one  degree  less  binding 
than  an  actual  marriage,  and  that,  she  thought, 
must  be  to  a  "nice  woman" — by  which  she 
meant  a  pure  and  honorable  one — nearly  if 
not  quite  indissoluble.     Of  course,  under  cer- 
tain terrible  conditions,  a  woman  might  be 
forced  to  live  apart  from  her  husband,  but  di- 
vorce and  especially  remarriage  were,  in  her 


MISS  CORNELIA'S  CODE       57 

girlish  opinion,  disgraceful  and  disgusting. 
There  was  nothing  lax  or  even  moderately 
flexible,  about  her  ideas  of  right  and  wrong. 
Like  most  young  people,  she  saw  all  things  as 
black  or  white;  good  and  evil  seemed  easy  to 
distinguish  and  choose  between  then,  when  for 
her  intervening  grays  did  not  yet  exist. 

Instinctively,  inarticulately,  she  prayed  as 
she  lay  there  wrapped  in  happy  waking  dreams 
— dreams  vibrant  with  a  sense  of  adventure. 
She  felt  that  she  was  about  to  start  off  on  a 
wonderful  journey  through  a  mysterious,  un- 
explored country.  She  was  not  at  all  fright- 
ened, but  she  was  curious,  intensely  excited, 
thrilled  with  expectation  of  marvels  and  ro- 
mance. The  familiar  land  of  girlhood  was 
very  dear  to  her,  but  it  had  afforded  no  such 
consciousness  of  splendid  daring  as  did  the 
thought  of  this  setting  forth  into  the  unknown. 
Always  she  had  wanted  to  feel  and  to  experi- 
ence, to  fill  her  cup  of  life  full,  full  to  the  very 
brim,  refusing  neither  joy  nor  sorrow.  That 
alert  look,  that  radiant  eagerness  of  hers,  were 
not  delusive. 

And  with  every  tick  of  the  clock  it  was  com- 
ing nearer,  nearer,  that  hour  which  was  to  be 
the  richest  she  had  ever  known.  On  the  stroke 


58     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

of  five  he  would  be  with  her,  and  then — and 
then —  A  delicious  shyness  swept  over  her. 
Last  night  he  had  not  even  ventured  to  touch 
her  hand,  but  now.  .  .  . 

She  buried  her  burning  face  in  the  pillow, 
quivering  with  emotions  and  sensations  she  did 
not  understand. 

An  intense  restlessness  possessed  her.  She 
left  her  bed,  bathed  and  dressed,  planning  to 
take  a  long,  solitary  walk  in  the  Park.  But 
she  had  forgotten  to  ring  for  her  breakfast,  so 
there  was  a  few  minutes'  delay  while  the  tray 
was  being  prepared.  And  that  tiny  incident 
altered  her  whole  life. 

For  it  caused  her  to  pick  up  the  morning 
paper  and  glance  over  it  while  she  waited. 
And  the  first  information  it  gave  her  was  that 
the  North  Eastern  had  passed  its  dividend, 
was  not  likely  to  pay  any  for  some  time,  and 
was  in  danger  of  being  declared  bankrupt. 

She  was  not  a  good  enough  business  woman 
to  comprehend  more  than  a  fraction  of  what 
was  implied  in  the  article  she  rushed  through 
at  a  breakneck  speed  which  would  scarcely  per- 
mit her  to  take  in  the  words.  But  one  thing 
she  thoroughly  understood :  that  the  money  the 
Misses  Van  Vechten  had  invested  in  the  North 


MISS  CORNELIA'S  CODE        59 

Eastern  was  almost  certainly  lost.  And  what 
this  would  mean  to  them  her  vivid  imagination 
flung  before  her  as  in  a  succession  of  pictures 
cast  upon  a  screen.  Oh,  it  was  too  bad! 
Their  little  bit  of  an  income — 

And  her  father!  He  too  had  invested  in 
North  Eastern — swiftly  she  dismissed  that 
trouble.  It  was  the  salary  he  received  as  head 
of  a  flourishing  real  estate  business  which  pro- 
vided their  principal  source  of  income.  The 
loss  of  what  he  had  in  the  North  Eastern  would 
be  inconvenient,  worse  than  inconvenient;  but 
not  ruinous. 

Oh,  poor  Rudolph!  How  dreadfully  he 
must  feel  to  think  that  his  advice  had  brought 
such  distress — it  must  be  worse  than  losing 
the  money!  And  he  had  probably  done  that 
too.  .  .  .  She  must  and  would  speak  to  him 
at  once — 

She  caught  up  the  telephone  which  stood  on 
a  small  table  beside  her  bed,  snatched  the  re- 
ceiver oflUthe  hook — and  replaced  it  before 
Central  could  answer.  No,  not  that  way! 
She  would  wait  until  he  came  to  her. 

Meanwhile  she  must  do  something!  Her 
father,  of  course,  had  gone  down-town,  but  she 
would  hurry  over  at  once  to  East  Seventeenth 


60     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Street  and  see  Miss  Cornelia.  The  two  little 
ladies  were  the  worst  sufferers,  for  while  .  .  . 
Rudolph — her  thoughts  paused  shyly  before 
the  name — was  no  doubt  blaming  himself  bit- 
terly, he  must  of  course  realize  that  he  couldn't 
expect  or  be  expected  never  to  make  a  mis- 
take. 

The  breakfast  tray  now  appeared.  Nita 
had  a  healthy  young  appetite  and  was  hungry, 
but  she  couldn't  bear  to  take  the  time  to  eat 
much.  She  hurried  into  her  trig  tailored  suit 
and  adjusted  the  small  velvet  hat,  perched  on 
its  fashionable  bandeau  high  above  the  waves 
of  light-brown  hair.  Feeling  pleasantly  ad- 
venturous, even  in  her  distress,  at  doing  an  un- 
accustomed thing  however  insignificant,  she 
hastened  across  to  Third  Avenue  and  took  an 
elevated  train.  It  was  the  quickest  way,  and 
the  crowd  and  discomfort  only  added  to  her 
sense  of  daring.  But  when  she  reached  the 
house  in  East  Seventeenth  Street  all  this  dis- 
appeared under  a  flooding  sympathy. 

Yes,  Miss  Cornelia  and  Miss  Sophia  were 
at  home  and  would  see  her,  so  Betsy  presently 
informed  her  in  a  hushed  tone.  For  although 
it  would  never  have  occurred  to  the  Misses  Van 
Vechten  to  tell  her  any  of  their  affairs,  the 


MISS  CORNELIA'S  CODE        61 

faithful  old  soul  knew  very  well  that  some- 
thing was  seriously  wrong. 

There  were  no  indications  of  disturbance  in 
the  prim  little  parlor.  Each  chair  occupied 
its  appointed  place,  not  a  speck  of  dust  marred 
the  polished  surfaces  of  the  mahogany  tables 
and  quaint  old  secretaire.  And  yet  the  at- 
mosphere was  changed:  peace  and  security 
were  gone;  apprehension  had  come. 

Nita  moved  about  restlessly,  in  direct  viola- 
tion of  every  tacit  rule  of  the  place.  She 
ached  "to  do  something,"  but  what  it  might 
be  possible  to  do  she  hadn't  the  least  idea.  It 
seemed  to  her  a  good  half  hour,  but  it  was 
really  only  a  few  minutes,  before  Miss  Cor- 
nelia entered  the  room. 

The  little  gentlewoman  was  dressed  as 
daintily  as  usual;  her  tiny  lace  cap  was  as  ex- 
actly placed,  her  fine  lawn  collar  and  cuffs  as 
immaculate.  Her  manner  had  lost  nothing  of 
its  quaint  precision — but  her  delicate  eyelids 
were  swollen  and  faintly  pink.  And  when 
Nita  came  to  her  with  a  half  suppressed,  in- 
coherently tender  exclamation,  she  kissed  her 
fondly — something  which  did  not  often  hap- 
pen. 

It  was  the  elder  woman  who  spoke  first. 


62     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Don't  look  so  distressed,  dear  child,"  she 
said  gently. 

"Oh,  Miss  Cornelia,  I'm  so  sorry,  so  dread- 
fully sorry!  I  just  couldn't  stay  away;  is  it 
very  bad?" 

Miss  Van  Vechten  hesitated  an  instant. 
Then  she  said,  with  a  simple  dignity  that  en- 
forced respect,  "We  have  lost  about  two  thirds 
of  our  income,  Sister  and  I." 

"But  what  will  you  do?"  exclaimed  Nita,  her 
young  impetuosity  seeming  greater  than  ever 
by  contrast  with  the  other's  calm. 

"We  have  made  our  plans,"  Miss  Cornelia 
answered  quietly.  "For  the  past  few  days  we 
have  known  that — there  was  trouble.  Mr. 
Hobbs  so  informed  us,  and  the  newspapers  cor- 
roborated his  statement." 

She  paused,  and  Nita  broke  in  quickly: 

"I  haven't  looked  at  a  paper  for  weeks — 
not  until  this  morning.  Then  I  read — " 

"Mr.  Hobbs,  a  truly  excellent  man  against 
whom  I  fear  we  were  formerly  somewhat 
prejudiced,  tried  to  save  something  for  us," 
Miss  Cornelia  went  on,  "but  he  was  able  to  ac- 
complish only  a  very  little.  We  will  have  to 
retrench,  of  course."  For  the  first  time  her 
sweet  low  voice  faltered.  "We  are  going  to 


MISS  CORNELIA'S  CODE        63 

— to  leave  this  apartment,  and  move  far  up- 
town." 

Nita  caught  her  breath.  The  Misses  Van 
Vechten  had  seemed  so  much  a  part  of  this 
home  of  theirs  that  it  was  difficult  to  think  of 
them  away  from  it.  And  they  loved  it  so! 

"Dear  Miss  Cornelia,  how  brave  you  are!" 
she  cried  with  mingled  surprise  and  admira- 
tion. She  had  considered  weak  and  timorous, 
almost  nerveless,  these  two  who  were  afraid  of 
spiders  and  thunderstorms. 

The  little  lady  drew  herself  up  proudly. 
"When  one  has  been  born  a  Van  Vechten,  my 
dear,  one  cannot  make  a  useless  fuss  or  be  a 
coward.  It  does  not  do  to  shame  one's  fore- 
fathers." 

It  was  an  old-fashioned  code,  perhaps,  this 
of  noblesse  oblige,  but  it  was  the  one  Cornelia 
Van  Vechten  held — and  practiced. 

"Certainly  not!"  Nita  replied  promptly. 
"But — but  can't  something  be  done?" 

Miss  Cornelia  patted  the  girl's  hand  and 
smiled;  the  saddest,  wintriest  little  smile — 

"That  is  exactly  what  our  Donald  asked  last 
night,"  she  said;  and  added,  with  a  tiny  quiver 
in  her  calm  voice:  "The  dear  boy  wanted  to 
give  us — er — pecuniary  assistance" — how  dif- 


64     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

ficult  it  was  for  Miss  Cornelia  to  speak  di- 
rectly of  money! — "but  of  course" — her  frail 
body  straightened  and  stiffened  just  percepti- 
bly— "but  of  course  we  would  not  dream  of 
accepting  help,  even  if  he  could  afford  to  give 
it." 

Had  it  not  been  for  that  last  clause,  Nita 
might  have  ventured  a  protest;  Donald  For- 
sythe's  implied  poverty  silenced  her.  There 
was  only  one  thing. 

"Perhaps  my  father — ?" 

"Thank  you,  dear  child,  I  fear  there  is  noth- 
ing that  can  be  done."  Again  the  little  lady 
paused ;  then  continued,  very  gently :  "I  wrote 
to  Mr.  Drake,  so  soon  as  we  were  definitely  in- 
formed of — of  what  had  happened.  I  was 
afraid  he  might  reproach  himself  for  counsel- 
ling us  to  retain  our  investments  in  the  North 
Eastern,  and  be  distressed." 

Nita  appreciated  the  delicate  feeling  which 
had  prompted  both  the  act  and  the  telling  her 
of  it.  She  had  always  been  fond  of  Miss  Cor- 
nelia and  her  silent  sister,  and  now  the  self- 
possession,  the  quiet  dignity,  displayed  by 
these  two  old-fashioned  gentlewomen  com- 
manded her  admiration.  They  were  holding 
their  heads  high,  obeying  their  code  when  such 


MISS  CORNELIA'S  CODE        65 

obedience  was  most  difficult.  She  had  come  to 
the  house  on  East  Seventeenth  Street  prepared 
to  wipe  away  tears  and  soothe  lamentations; 
she  remained  to  do  reverence  to  a  courage 
which  seemed  to  her  little  less  than  heroic. 

In  her  own  silent  way,  Miss  Sophia  reflected 
her  sister's  fortitude.  Donald  Forsythe,  who 
presently  dropped  in  for  a  flying  visit,  ap- 
peared more  angry  and  perturbed  than  either 
of  them,  although  he  controlled  his  wrath  until 
Nita  and  he  were  out  of  the  house  and  walking 
slowly  westward  towards  Fifth  Avenue. 
Then  he  broke  forth  indignantly: 

"Of  all  the  damnable  outrages!  I  beg  your 
pardon,  Miss  Wynne — but  that's  exactly  what 
it  is." 

Nita  could  not  help  liking  the  outburst,  al- 
though she  thought  it  rather  unjust,  and  an- 
swered : 

"Well,  I  don't  suppose  the  North  Eastern 
people  want  the  road  to  be  bankrupt!" 

"I'm  afraid  that's  precisely  what  they  do 
want.  Some  newspaper  men  I  know  have 
been  talking  to  me,  and  they  say — " 

He  paused,  and  Nita  demanded  quickly: 

"What  do  they  say?" 

"They  say  it's  all  a  put-up  job.     That  the 


66     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

North  Eastern  will  be  reorganized,  and  the 
shareholders  told  that  if  they'll  come  in — that 
is,  hand  over  more  money — they'll  have  some 
sort  of  a  chance  to  get  back  what  they've  lost. 
Otherwise,  they'll  be  wiped  out.  There  were 
a  lot  of  small  investors  like  my  aunts,  people 
who  can't  afford  to  give  out  another  cent. 
You  see?" 

"But  that's  stealing!"  Nita  cried.  Some- 
how it  never  entered  her  head  to  doubt  his 
statement. 

"Of  course  it  is — morally.  Only  it  isn't  il- 
legal. There's  a  difference,  you  know! 
They've  probably  stayed  well  within  the  let- 
ter of  the  law.  Though  I  can't  but  believe 
that  if  some  one  with  money  and  influence 
would  go  into  the  thing,  he  might  make  it  hot 
for  a  few  of  those  estimable  gentlemen  who 
are  shedding  crocodile  tears  over  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  poor  investors !" 

"Why  isn't  it  done,  then?"  exclaimed  Nita 
indignantly.  "I  never  heard  of  anything  so 
infamous!  They  ought  to  be  sent  to  jail, 
every  one  of  them!"  Her  quick,  sweeping 
gesture  was  a  wholesale  condemnation. 

He  was  as  frankly  if  not  quite  as  naively 
wrathful  as  she. 


MISS  CORNELIA'S  CODE        67 

"The  trouble  is  that  the  people  who've  been 
hit  are  the  kind  that  can't  afford  to  make  a 
row — women  like  my  aunts  and  men  of  about 
the  same  kind — superannuated  clergymen  and 
professors  and  so  forth.  That's  what  the  lit- 
tle ring  they  say  has  engineered  the  whole  busi- 
ness is  banking  on,  unless  I'm  very  much  mis- 
taken. I'd  fight  them  myself,  if  I  had  a  little 
more  coin — nothing  I'd  like  better!"  The 
lowering  of  his  heavy  brows,  the  flash  of  his 
dark  eyes  as  he  turned  to  her,  emphasized  his 
words ;  the  vigor  and  energy  of  the  born  fighter 
were  in  his  look  and  tone.  For  the  moment 
his  head,  with  its  high  cheek  bones,  hollow  tem- 
ples, and  sharply  cut  features,  seemed  almost 
hawklike.  An  instant  the  memory  of  certain 
bas-reliefs  of  the  young  Horus  flitted  across 
Nita's  thoughts.  "That's  what  I'd  enjoy  do- 
ing! As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  suppose  I'll  sub- 
mit, same  as  all  the  rest."  His  left  shoulder 
jerked  abruptly. 

Nita  suddenly  remembered  what  Miss  Cor- 
nelia had  told  her  about  Donald  Forsythe's  re- 
fusal to  enter  the  employ  of  the  Trans-Con- 
tinental Trust,  at  the  bidding  of  Atkinson 
Matthews.  She  had  picked  up  a  good  many 
stray  bits  of  information  from  the  talk  of  her 


68     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

father  and  his  friends;  she  knew  that  several 
of  the  officers  of  the  Trans- Continental  were 
connected  with  the  North  Eastern.  It  was  all 
more  or  less  hazy  to  her,  but  it  prevented  her 
from  even  hinting  at  the  possibility  of  an  ap- 
peal to  Donald  Forsythe's  great-uncle. 

"Oh,  I  wish  I  could  do  something!"  she  cried 
suddenly,  throwing  back  her  spirited  little  head 
as  though  delivering  a  challenge. 

He  was  so  sore  over  his  own  powerlessness 
that  the  futile  wish  rather  exasperated  him. 
His  thin,  clever  face  was  too  expressive  not  to 
betray  his  annoyance,  but  Nit  a  was  not  suffi- 
ciently interested  in  him  to  notice  it,  although 
she  had  a  half  conscious  feeling  that  she  had 
known  him  for  a  very  long  time. 

When  they  reached  Fifth  Avenue,  Donald 
excused  himself,  pleading  a  business  engage- 
ment, and  Nita  went  on  alone,  thinking  so  in- 
tently that  she  was  surprised  to  find  herself, 
in  what  seemed  an  astonishingly  short  space 
of  time,  at  the  corner  of  her  own  street. 

She  ate  her  lunch  in  solitude  and  presently, 
as  the  time  appointed  for  Drake's  coming 
drew  near,  the  impressions  of  the  morning  be- 
gan, not  to  fade,  but  to  recede  into  the  back- 
ground of  her  mind.  She  had  entered  so 


MISS  CORNELIA'S  CODE        69 

thoroughly  into  the  sorrow  of  those  other  lives 
that  for  a  while  her  own  affairs  had  been  su- 
perseded. Now  they  came  forward  once  more ; 
her  own  happiness  once  more  possessed  her 
wholly.  Her  lover  was  coming;  she  must 
make  ready  for  him,  make  her  gift  altogether 
worthy  his  acceptance.  That  glimpse  of 
baseness  which  her  talk  with  Donald  Forsythe 
had  given  her  caused  her  to  turn  with  in- 
creased admiration  towards  him,  her  own  gal- 
lant, chivalrous  knight.  By  contrast  with  that 
briefly  visioned  black,  his  immaculate  white- 
ness shone  yet  more  resplendent. 

She  sent  away  her  maid;  no  hands  save  her 
own  should  attire  her  for  this,  her  hour  of 
hours.  She  clothed  herself  afresh,  selecting 
the  daintiest  from  her  abundant  store  of  hand- 
made, delicately  embroidered  lingerie;  to  her 
there  was  something  symbolic  in  the  act.  She 
held  her  breath  with  anxiety  as  she  arranged 
the  heavy  coils  of  light  brown  hair;  never  be- 
fore, she  thought,  had  the  gold  in  it  seemed  so 
plentiful.  She  tried  on  half  a  dozen  gowns, 
weighing  their  merits  with  an  indecision 
strange  to  her,  whose  habit  it  was  to  jump  at 
conclusions.  At  last  she  chose  a  white  mous- 
seline  de  soie  and  spent  ten  minutes  or  more 


70     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

adjusting  the  newly  arrived  lilies-of-the- 
valley  at  her  slender  waist:  this  adornment  of 
herself  for  her  lover  was  to  her  like  part  of  a 
beautiful,  solemn  ritual. 

Flushed,  radiant,  tinglingly  alive  in  every 
nerve  and  fiber  of  her  being,  she  paused  to  look 
once  again  in  the  long  mirror,  surveying  her- 
self with  delight,  laughing  softly  through 
sheer  surcharge  of  joy.  For  her  fearless,  in- 
experienced eyes  saw  only  the  glory  of  her 
youth  and  nothing  of  its  pathos;  saw  only  the 
glad  trustfulness  with  which  she  welcomed  the 
future  and  nothing  of  the  dangers  of  such 
overconfidence. 

The  electric  bell  rang  sharply,  and  the  par- 
lor maid  came  in  with  Drake's  card,  exactly  as 
though  this  were  merely  an  ordinary  call! 
Nita  did  not  run  down  the  stairs,  she  floated; 
treading  not  on  wood  and  carpet,  but  upon 
rose-tinted,  sun-flecked  clouds. 


CHAPTER  V 

HER   HOUR 

SHE  had  directed  the  maid  to  show  Mr. 
Drake  into  the  library,  where  she  knew 
they  would  be  safe  from  casual  callers.  And 
as  she  reached  the  second-story  hall,  she  was 
surprised  to  hear  voices — her  father's  first,  then 
Rudolph  Drake's.  She  had  not  expected  to 
meet  him  in  the  presence  of  a  third  person,  and 
she  was  disappointed  and  at  the  same  time  just 
a  wee  bit  relieved. 

When  she  entered  the  library,  the  two  men 
were  standing  together  in  the  bay  window, 
talking  busily.  She  could  not  see  either  of 
them  clearly,  for  the  luminous  golden  haze  that 
hung  before  her  eyes.  The  first  few  words  of 
greeting  were  an  indistinguishable  jumble  to 
her;  she  was  conscious  only  of  Drake's  pres- 
ence. 

Then  she  became  aware  that  her  father  was 
speaking: 

" — So  I  came  up-town  early.     But  I  didn't 


72     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

expect  any  such  good  luck  as  finding  you  here 
— though  I  wasn't  altogether  surprised, 
either!"  He  laughed  as  he  clapped  the  young 
man  lightly  on  the  shoulder.  A  second's 
pause,  and  he  added,  with  a  change  of  tone: 
"I'll  take  your  advice  and  call  Nilor  up  right 
away." 

"You'd  better  not  mention — " 

"That  it  was  you  who  warned  me  to  get  out 
of  the  North  Eastern?  Not  much  I  won't! 
That  was  a  mighty  good  turn  you  did  me,  my 
boy.  I'd  have  lost  a  tidy  little  sum  if  you 
hadn't  told  me  about  it  all  last  month."  He 
chuckled  gleefully.  "Stay  and  dine  with  us 
— no  need  to  dress.  We're  only  too  glad  to 
have  you  just  as  you  are,  eh,  Nita?  You 
might  have  had  to  economize  a  bit,  young  lady, 
if  he  hadn't  given  me  the  tip  to  stand  from 
under  in  time !" 

They  were  alone  now,  he  and  she.  There 
was  an  instant's  pause,  and  in  the  silence  the 
clock  struck  five.  Her  hour  had  come — her 
hour! 

He  took  a  quick  step  towards  her;  and  she 
recoiled  a  little,  warding  him  off  with  out- 
stretched hands. 

He  stopped,  amazed.    He  did  not  in  the 


HER  HOUR  73 

least  understand.  He  only  knew  that  she  de- 
nied him :  and  that  she  was  very  lovely  and 
very  pale. 

"Nita — Snow  Queen!"  he  exclaimed  en- 
treatingly.  "I  hoped  last  night — when  you 
told  me  I  might  come — " 

Last  night!  Centuries  had  passed  since 
then.  The  feeling  of  unreality  which  had  held 
her  then  possessed  her  still;  but  the  glorious 
dream  was  now  a  nightmare.  And  the  man 
before  her,  her  hero,  her  Bayard — what  was 
he?  One  phrase  repeated  itself,  as  though 
whispered  to  her  over  and  over  again:  "He 
knew.  Last  month — he  knew." 

She  spoke  slowly,  in  a  curious,  muffled  tone. 
"You  warned  my  father — to  get  rid  of  his 
North  Eastern  .  .  .  ?" 

Neither  her  attitude  nor  the  reason  for  her 
question  was  comprehensible  to  him.  He  had 
come  for  love-making,  not  financial  discus- 
sion. 

"Yes,  I  did,"  he  exclaimed  impatiently. 
"Of  course,  I  wasn't  going  to  let  your  father 
—  Oh,  Nita  darling,  don't  keep  me  waiting 
any  longer!  I  thought  the  day  would  never 
end—  How  can  you  make  me  suffer  like  this, 
when  I  love  you  so!" 


74     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Again  he  came  towards  her;  and  again  she 
recoiled. 

It  was  no  longer  only  the  world  around  her 
which  was  unreal,  but  she  herself  as  well. 
This  thing  which  seemed  to  have  happened 
could  not  be  an  actuality !  It  was  only  an  ugly 
nightmare,  from  which  she  would  awaken  pres- 
ently. 

"It  isn't  that — "  Her  phrases  were  broken, 
importunate  as  her  thoughts.  "But  I  don't 
quite  understand — and  I  must.  You  knew  the 
North  Eastern — " 

He  was  becoming  irritable.  That  such 
treatment  should  be  meted  out  to  him,  who  had 
felt  so  secure — a  conqueror! 

"I  knew  it  had  a  mighty  good  chance  of  go- 
ing to  smash,  if  that's  what  you're  after.  But 
I  don't  see  what  possible  difference  my  know- 
ing or  not  knowing  it  can  make  to  you." 

He  spoke  the  truth ;  he  did  not  see. 

"You  knew — and  you  told  Miss  Cornelia  it 
was  all  right — perfectly  safe — " 

"So,  that's  it!  Why,  you  little  white  angel 
you,  what  else  could  I  do?  I'd  been  let  into 
a  good  thing — and  it  might  have  spoiled  it  all 
for  me  and  my  friends  if  I'd  given  that  chat- 
tering old  woman  a  hint.  She'd  have  gone  and 


HER  HOUR  75 

talked  to  every  one  she  knew.  But  you're  so 
sweet  and  dear — " 

Something  in  his  eyes  made  her  so  change 
her  position  that  the  broad  library  table  sep- 
arated them. 

"I  don't  expect  you  to  betray  your  friends. 
You  could  have  refused  to  answer  her  ques- 
tions." 

Drake  hesitated.  How  could  he  explain 
that  he  had  been  using  every  possible  oppor- 
tunity to  strengthen  confidence  in  the  North 
Eastern,  and  that  to  him  Miss  Van  Vechten 
had  merely  represented  one  such  opportun- 
ity? 

"It  wouldn't  have  done,"  he  said  at  last  in  a 
tone  of  dismissal.  "I'm  sorry  they  were  stuck, 
but  I  can't  take  care  of  every  fool  investor. 
If  I  can  help  them,  I  will,  I  promise  you." 
He  felt  that  he  was  being  exceedingly  gen- 
erous. "Now  let's  forget  all  about  them! 
Last  night  you  made  me  so  happy — " 

She  interrupted  him  swiftly.  Her  eyes 
were  bright,  her  color  high,  her  slender  form 
tense  with  revulsion. 

"Last  night — I  believed  in  you,"  she  said. 

"What  on  earth  do  you  mean?"  he  de- 
manded. Disappointment,  irritation,  were 


76     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

fast  turning  into  anger.  Suddenly  a  thought 
struck  him,  seeming  to  throw  a  flood  of  light 
on  the  situation.  "You  don't — you  cant  sup- 
pose I  warned  your  father  because  I  thought 
the  money 'd  be  yours  some  day?" 

"No,  no!"  she  cried  sharply.  Characteristi- 
cally enough,  such  an  idea  had  never  entered 
her  head. 

"Then — what  do  you  mean?"  he  repeated. 

To  answer  would  have  been  to  reveal  all  the 
dreams,  all  the  iridescent  hopes  she  had  cher- 
ished. She  could  not  have  done  this  if  she 
would.  And  so  she  replied  brokenly,  inad- 
equately: 

"I  thought  you — very  different.  I  did  not 
know  you  would  speak  falsely  and — betray 
confidence." 

"You're  out  of  your  mind!"  he  exclaimed  in 
amazement. 

"There's  no  use  talking  about  it."  Her 
voice  shook  a  little.  Around  that  gallant 
presence  of  his  she  had  spun  the  exquisitely 
delicate  web  of  her  girlish  fancies ;  he  had  been 
the  hero  of  her  romance;  but  she  would  not, 
could  not  remember  these  things  now.  And 
she  added  quietly :  "I  think  you  had  better — 

go-" 


HER  HOUR  77 

He  had  been  trying  hard  to  hold  himself  in 
check.  Anger,  bewilderment,  balked  pas- 
sion, rising  to  flood  tide,  had  their  way  at  last. 

"You — you — cheat!"  he  cried,  incoherent  in 
his  wrath.  "So  you've  changed  your  mind, 
have  you,  and  want  an  excuse —  Thought  it 
would  be  fun,  did  you,  to  get  me  here  and  then 
— I  warn  you  I'm  not  safe  to  play  with  1" 

The  debonair  lover  was  gone;  in  his  place 
raged  a  vain,  sensual  man  denied  the  thing  he 
most  wanted,  the  thing  he  had  believed  he  held 
securely  in  his  grasp. 

She  was  not  in  the  least  frightened,  but  she 
was  very  angry.  It  was  intolerable  that  he 
should  fall  so  far  short  of  her  ideal  of  him  as 
to  be  unable  to  understand  or  even  to  take  his 
dismissal  quietly!  She  had  not  the  faintest 
comprehension  of  his  very  real  suffering,  of  the 
strength  of  the  force  she  had  unleashed  and 
now  expected  to  go  to  heel  at  a  word,  like  a 
well-trained  dog.  Only  she  felt  that  she 
loathed  this  man  who  had  been  the  prince  of 
her  enchanted  kingdom  and  wantonly,  ruth- 
lessly destroyed  it.  As  he  had  once  seemed  to 
her  compact  of  knightly  virtues,  so  did  he  now 
appear  devoid  of  any  shred  of  honor  or  even 
decency.  The  rose-colored  dream  in  which  she 


78     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

had  been  living  was  wrecked  and  worse  than 
wrecked;  it  was  defiled.  And  now  his  look, 
even  more  than  his  speech,  insulted  her. 

"Go!"  she  commanded,  lifting  her  head  with 
a  defiant  gesture,  unconsciously  dramatic. 

Never  had  she  seemed  to  him  so  completely 
desirable  as  at  this  moment  when  she  ordered 
him  out  of  her  presence  as  she  might  have  or- 
dered something  unclean.  He  too  had  had 
visions,  visions  of  the  time  when  she  would  be 
his.  And  though  his  dreams  had  been  very 
different  from  those  she  cherished,  they  were 
destroyed  no  less  than  hers,  and  perhaps  still 
more  painfully.  His  reaction  from  an  earlier 
mood  was  extreme  as  her  own.  He  saw  her 
only  as  the  woman  he  wanted,  the  woman  who 
had  first  tacitly  promised  and  then  denied  him. 

The  blood  ran  hot  and  swift  in  his  veins,  his 
pulses  hammered,  his  throat  was  dry  and  burn- 
ing. His  feeling  indeed  was  near  akin  to  that 
which  has  led  more  than  one  man  to  kill  the 
woman  who  refused  his  love.  He  would  take 
and  hold  and  kiss  her  into  submission,  this  ex- 
quisite, vivid  creature  who  must — who  must  1 — 
be  his,  no  matter  how,  no  matter  what  the  cost. 

No  shrinking,  no  outstretched  forbidding 
hands  would  control  him  now. 


HER  HOUR  79 

She  had  caught  up  the  heavy  bronze  ink- 
stand from  off  the  writing  table. 

"Don't  touch  me!"  she  gasped. 

And  this  time  it  was  he  who  recoiled. 

They  stood  facing  each  other,  both  breathing 
heavily.  A  great  blot  of  ink  stained  the  front 
of  the  silvery  gown  she  had  chosen  for  this,  her 
hour  of  consecration. 

It  was  she  who  broke  the  long,  horrible  si- 
lence. 

"Now — will  you  go?"  she  demanded  with  all 
the  haughtiness,  all  the  white  fury  of  offended 
Artemis. 

There  were  voices  in  the  hall;  the  sound 
jerked  him  sharply  back  from  the  world  of 
primitive  passions  into  that  of  restraints  and 
conventions.  He  moistened  his  dry  lips, 
striving  to  speak.  He  could  have  cursed  her 
in  his  rage  and  disappointment,  there  where 
she  stood  so  white  and  fearless,  with  the 
great  black  stain  on  the  front  of  her  dress. 
And  he  could  have  fallen  at  her  feet  in 
a  mad  passion  of  penitence  and  supplica- 
tion. 

But  the  world  of  conventions  had  regained 
its  hold;  the  fateful  moment  was  gone,  never 
to  return.  An  instant  only  he  waited,  while 


the  voices  of  Mr.  Wynne  and  the  clerk  he  had 
summoned  died  away. 

Nita  heard  the  front  door  slam  behind  him. 
For  a  little  while  she  stood  motionless.  Then 
she  went  to  the  writing  table,  methodically 
arranged  paper  and  pens  and  replaced  the  ink- 
stand. Very  slowly  she  unfastened  the  flow- 
ers she  had  adjusted  with  such  tenderness  and 
care,  and  laid  them  upon  the  table.  She  had 
worn  lilies-of-the-valley  for  the  last  time. 

Presently  she  rang  the  bell  for  the  maid. 

"I  upset  the  ink,"  she  said  quietly,  listening 
half  wonderingly  to  her  own  calm  voice. 
"Please  get  a  cloth  and  wipe  it  up." 

"Oh,  Miss  Nita,  your  dress!"  the  girl  ex- 
claimed in  dismay. 

Nita  gave  a  queer  little  laugh,  glancing 
down  at  the  white  gown. 

"It's — quite  spoiled,  isn't  it?"  she  said. 


CHAPTER  VI 

HOOPS   OF  STEEL 

IT  was  easy  enough  to  explain  Drake's 
failure  to  appear  at  dinner  that  evening, 
but  Nita  knew  that  the  breach  between  them 
would  soon  be  discovered  and  commented 
upon.  And  thought  of  comment  was  like  a 
rude  touch  on  an  exposed  nerve.  What 
might  not  people  say?  She  remembered 
thankfully  her  often  repented  promise  to  pay 
a  visit  to  the  Danes,  at  Elmstead;  it  would  be 
a  relief  to  get  away  from  New  York  for  a  time. 
She  rebelled  against  this  thing  which  had  hap- 
pened; that  such  pain  and  disappointment 
should  have  come  to  her  filled  her  with  youth- 
ful amazement.  She  was  too  young  not  to  feel 
tragic,  and  she  did  not  realize  that  her  eager 
interest  in  living  was  quite  unimpaired  any 
more  than  she  realized  that  she  had  been  in 
love  with  romance  and  glamour,  with  an  im- 
possible ideal  made  of  dreams  and  moonshine, 
never  with  the  man  Rudolph  Drake.  He  had 


82     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

but  served  as  a  suitable  lay  figure  on  which 
to  hang  the  gorgeous  trappings  of  her 
fancy. 

-  All  of  this  did  not  render  her  disappoint- 
ment and  wounded  pride  any  less  genuine  and 
painful,  but  only  less  enduring.  Drake  had 
outraged  her  maiden  dignity  in  a  way  she  felt 
she  never  could  forgive,  and  she  attributed  the 
rapidity  with  which  she  was  able  to  dismiss  his 
image  from  her  thoughts  to  this  indignation  of 
hers,  and  plumed  herself  a  trifle  on  her  strength 
of  character.  It  was  all  very  young,  some- 
what pathetic,  and  more  than  a  little  comic. 

But  this  successful  dismissal  was  yet  to 
come;  she  still  mourned  for  her  lost  castle  in 
the  air,  only  she  kept  her  mourning  hidden. 
Resolutely  she  took  her  usual  part  in  the 
various  gayeties  of  the  house  party,  to  all  ap- 
pearances as  blithe  as  ever.  And  here  per- 
haps she  really  did  show  something  of  the 
strength  with  which  she  credited  herself.  For 
whatever  else  might  be  imaginary,  the  hurt  of 
disillusionment  was  genuine.  Moreover,  she 
had  been  ready  to  give;  and  the  thwarting  of 
the  natural  human  impulse  seemed  to  paralyze 
something  within  her. 

Thus  she  found  it  rather  difficult  to  cope 


HOOPS  OF  STEEL  83 

with  a  new  adorer.  This  was  Elsie  Haight, 
that  youngest  sister  for  whose  social  future 
Mrs.  Haight  had  once  expected  Geraldine  to 
do  so  much.  She  was  a  remarkably  pretty 
little  person,  guest  and  chum  of  the  hostess' 
schoolgirl  daughter  Pauline.  From  the  mo- 
ment of  Miss  Wynne's  arrival,  Elsie  avowed 
herself  "perfectly  crazy  about  her,"  and  im- 
mediately proceeded  to  impart  all  her  joys  and 
woes  to  the  object  of  her  admiration.  At  first 
Nita  tried  to  discourage  her,  but  Elsie  was  not 
at  all  thin-skinned,  and  required  a  far  more 
pronounced  snubbing  than  sensitive  Nita  was 
inclined  to  bestow.  Before  she  was  quite 
aware  of  it,  she  found  herself  installed  as 
Elsie's  chosen  friend  and  confidante. 

"I  do  so  envy  Pauline!"  Elsie  sighed  one 
rainy  day,  curling  herself  up  among  the 
cushions  on  the  lounge  in  Nita's  room,  whither 
she  had  come  ostensibly  for  advice  as  to  the 
matching  of  hair  and  sash  ribbons.  "I  do  so 
envy  Pauline !  She  hasn't  any  sisters." 

"Why,  Elsie,  what  a  horrid  thing  to  say!" 
exclaimed  Nita  somewhat  conventionally. 
But  then,  as  she  reminded  herself,  she  did  not 
know  Phoebe,  the  second  Haight  girl,  who 
might  be  quite  unlike  Geraldine. 


84     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"You'd  feel  the  same  way  if  you  were  in  my 
place!  It's  beastly  enough  having  to  wear 
Phoebe's  old  duds  made  over — and  sometimes 
they've  been  Geraldine's  too — but  the  worst  of 
it  is  that  here  I  am,  sixteen  years  old,  and 
they've  both  got  to  be  married  off  before  I  can 
come  out,"  pouted  Elsie,  looking  injured  and 
almost  tearful. 

Nita  found  the  point  of  view  interesting. 
She  had  never  before  been  on  intimate  terms 
with  any  one  who  frankly  admitted  looking  at 
things  exactly  in  the  way  Elsie  had  been  taught 
to  regard  them,  and  that  curiosity  about  people 
in  general,  which  was  part  of  the  thirst  for  ex- 
perience her  recent  indulgence  in  romance  had 
temporarily  appeased,  was  again  becoming 
active. 

Openly  desirous  of  hearing  more,  she  said, 
"But  Elsie,  you  wouldn't  be  able  to  leave  school 
for  two  years  at  least,  even  if  you  were  an  only 
child."  ' 

Elsie  tossed  her  pretty  nut-brown  curls. 

"Oh,  of  course  not.  Only  it  will  be  lots 
more  than  two  years;  you  just  see  if  it  isn't! 
Here's  Phoebe,  twenty  and  over.  She's  been 
waiting  and  waiting  and  waiting  for  Geraldine 
to  marry  somebody,  so  she  could  have  her  turn, 


HOOPS  OF  STEEL  85 

and  Geraldine's  heaps  better  looking  than  she 
is.  It's  going  to  be  awfully  hard  on  me — two 
old-maid  sisters,  and  the  family  getting  poorer 
and  poorer  every  minute!"  Her  big  brown 
eyes  filled  with  the  easy  tears  of  self-pity. 

"Perhaps  it  won't  be  so  bad  as  all  that,"  an- 
swered Nita  consolingly.  "And  think  what  a 
splendid  time  you  may  have,  with  two  popular 
young  married  women  to  chaperon  you  and  en- 
tertain for  you!" 

Elsie's  smile  revealed  a  bewitching  dimple. 
"I'll  have  a  good  time,  all  right,  if  I  only  get 
half  a  chance!  You  see,  I'm  so  awfully 
pretty,  and  the  way  I  can  manage  men — 
Every  one  says  I'm  a  born  flirt.  Why,  our 
English  master  at  school — he's  'most  forty, 
but  he's  terribly  good  looking,  and  he's  dread- 
fully in  love  with  me!" 

Which  statement  would  have  been  truly 
amazing  news  to  that  overworked  individual, 
could  he  have  heard  it. 

Elsie  went  on  with  a  complacent  little  laugh : 
"I'll  probably  marry  a  millionaire  some  day. 
Mother  says  a  girl  can  get  more  with  less 
trouble  by  marrying  a  rich  man  than  in  any 
other  known  way." 

"But  suppose  you  shouldn't  happen  to — to 


86     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

care  for  any  rich  man?  What  then?"  Nita 
could  not  use  the  word  "love"  as  lightly  as 
Elsie  did. 

"Mother  says  it's  just  as  easy  to  fall  in  love 
with  a  rich  man  as  with  a  poor  one,  but  that 
it's  really  better  not  to  care  too  much,  anyway. 
After  the  honeymoon's  over,  you  needn't  see 
much  of  your  husband,  and  you  can  just  go 
ahead  and  have  a  good  time." 

It  was  not  a  gracious  nor  a  graceful  task  to 
combat  a  daughter's  repetition  of  her  mother's 
teachings.  Nita  spoke  with  a  touch  of  diffi- 
dence and  a  deepening  of  the  wild-rose  color 
in  her  cheeks: 

"You  must  remember  though,  Elsie,  that 
marriage  isn't  all  white  satin  and  orange  blos- 
soms and  motors  and  an  establishment. 
You've  got  to — to  go  on  living  with  the  man 
you  marry." 

"Oh,  you  mean  the  sex  business,"  Elsie  re- 
marked with,  to  Nita,  breath-taking  coolness. 
"Well,  that's  the  price  you've  got  to  pay. 
Mother  says  that  in  this  world  you  can't  get 
anything  for  nothing,  only  if  you're  clever,  you 
needn't  pay  much.  And  if  a  man's  crazy 
about  you,  you  can  manage  him  lots  more 
easily." 


HOOPS  OF  STEEL  87 

"Why,  Elsie,  I  thought  you  were  so  ro- 
mantic!" 

"Oh,  I  am — awfully  romantic!  Now  if  I 
eloped  with  Max,  there'd  be  lots  of  excitement, 
and  the  papers  would  all  have  columns  about 
it,  and  it  would  be  too  terribly  thrilling!  But 
there  isn't  any  fun  or  any  romance  to  a  mere 
ordinary  marriage.  If  I  run  away  with  Max, 
I'll  make  a  sensation;  and  if  I  marry  a  million- 
aire— well,  I'll  make  a  sensation,  and  men  can 
keep  on  falling  in  love  with  me  just  the  same. 
Of  course,"  she  added,  dimpling,  "I'm  count- 
ing on  getting  any  man  I  want."  Suddenly 
returning  to  her  grievance,  she  went  on: 
"Only  I  do  think  it'll  be  just  too  awfully  mean 
if  I'm  kept  back  for  Phoebe  until  there  isn't 
any  money  left!  Goodness  only  knows  what 
I  might  have  to  take  then!  But  of  course,  she 
wouldn't  have  the  ghost  of  a  show  if  I  was 
anywhere  around,"  she  ended  with  a  little 
giggle. 

Well,  she  certainly  was  very  pretty!  Snug- 
gling there  among  the  many-hued  down  pil- 
lows, she  reminded  one  of  a  luxurious,  fluffy 
Persian  kitten.  And  for  all  her  worldly  talk, 
she  was  very  young,  very  irresponsible.  Nita, 
though  less  than  five  years  Elsie's  senior,  often 


88     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

found  herself  treating  her  as  if  she  were  an 
innocently  mischievous  baby  whom  it  was  more 
or  less  her  own  duty  to  keep  out  of  trouble. 

She  had  quickly  discovered  that  Elsie  was 
given  to  "crushes,"  as  she  called  them,  brief 
amourettes  to  which  she  yielded  entirely  and 
with  no  attempt  at  resistance.  Just  now  she 
was  in  the  very  midst  of  one,  its  object  a  popu- 
lar baritone — the  Max  to  whom  she  had  al- 
luded, and  whose  picture  she  wore  in  a  locket 
hung  around  her  neck.  She  had  confided  to 
Nita  her  intention  of  writing  and  asking  for  an 
appointment  with  this  "perfectly  divine"  per- 
son, already  five  times  divorced,  and  been  dis- 
suaded therefrom  with  difficulty  and  an 
ingenious  playing  upon  her  dread  of  ridicule. 
It  was  this  success  which  first  awakened  in 
Nita  a  sense  of  being,  in  some  undefined,  un- 
reasoned way,  responsible  for  Elsie. 

At  the  time  this  sense  of  responsibility  was 
good  for  her,  giving  her  an  immediate  interest 
apart  from  her  own  shattered  romance.  She 
was  too  active  mentally,  too  intensely  alive  to 
have  brooded  long  over  the  ruin  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, but  it  certainly  helped  her  to 
shake  herself  free  from  the  debris  more  quickly 
than  she  might  otherwise  have  done. 


HOOPS  OF  STEEL  89 

And  then  came  a  surprise  which  destroyed 
all  her  plans  and  threatened  permanently  to 
disturb  that  smoothly  running  daily  existence 
she  had  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course.  The 
day  she  left  Elmstead  she  received  a  letter 
from  her  father  announcing  his  marriage  to 
Rudolph  Drake's  sister,  Mrs.  Ashurst. 

That  letter  was  a  veritable  bombshell  to 
Nita.  The  idea  that  her  father  might  marry 
again  had  never  crossed  her  mind.  Regarding 
a  second  marriage,  when  the  first  had  been  a 
happy  one,  as  nothing  short  of  an  indecent 
breach  of  loyalty,  the  event  would  have  hurt 
her,  even  had  the  second  wife  been  a  woman 
she  respected  and  liked.  And  this  second  wife 
was  Mrs.  Ashurst — Mrs.  Ashurst,  of  all  peo- 
ple! As  a  woman  who  smoked  and  rouged 
and  had  obtained  a  divorce  with  Mr.  Ashurst's 
full  consent — some  said,  with  his  thanks  and 
benediction — she  was  one  whom  Nita's  youth- 
ful ideas  of  right  and  wrong  placed  irrevo- 
cably among  the  goats.  A  rearranged  family 
was  something  for  which  she  had  neither 
patience  nor  tolerance.  And  now  a  woman  of 
the  class  she  most  despised  was  to  enter  her 
own  home.  It  was  worse  than  unpleasant;  it 
was,  as  Nita  said  emphatically,  "Absolutely 


90     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

disgusting!"  But  only  to  herself,  be  it  under- 
stood. For  with  all  her  frankness  she  had  cer- 
tain reserves ;  and  she  was  very  proud. 

This  pride  enabled  her  to  greet  the  new  Mrs. 
Wynne  when  the  pair  returned  from  their 
honeymoon,  a  few  weeks  later,  with  a  courtesy 
quite  irreproachable,  if  absolutely  glacial. 
Between  them  an  armed  truce  was  speedily 
and  tacitly  established.  They  met  at  meals 
when  guests  were  present,  but  otherwise  led 
entirely  separate  lives.  This  constant  state 
of  preparedness  was  not  good  for  Nita;  the 
former  Mrs.  Ashurst  chafed  under  it,  and  it 
reduced  Mr.  Wynne  to  a  perpetual  condition 
of  apologetic  sheepishness.  He  was  uxorious 
as  only  an  elderly  man  in  the  grasp  of  a  late- 
coming  infatuation  can  be;  yet  he  knew  he  had 
dishonored  himself  in  his  daughter's  eyes,  knew 
she  judged  him  with  that  ruthlessness  of  youth 
which  is  quite  honestly  blind  to  any  save  the 
most  obvious  of  extenuating  circumstances. 
There  was  a  gulf  between  them,  and  although 
each  occasionally  stretched  out  affectionate 
hands  to  the  other  across  it,  it  remained  im- 
passable. Had  Nita  been  older,  more  versed 
in  the  intricacies  of  human  nature,  and  conse- 
quently more  lenient  in  her  judgments,  had 


HOOPS  OF  STEEL  91 

Mr.  Wynne  possessed  a  stronger  character,  or 
had  they  ever  indulged  in  a  downright  quarrel, 
it  might  have  been  crossed.  But  there  it  lay 
between  them,  all  day  and  every  day,  prohibit- 
ing that  ease  and  freedom  of  speech  which  is 
the  joy  of  human  intercourse. 

Therefore  was  it  impossible  for  him  to  ques- 
tion her  regarding  the  break  with  Rudolph 
which  had  quite  evidently  occurred.  He  spoke 
to  his  wife  about  it,  and  she,  who  had  looked 
forward  to  getting  rid  of  Nita  by  speedy  and 
due  process  of  marriage,  endeavored  to  cross- 
examine  her  brother,  only  to  be  met  by  a 
reticence  and  a  sullen  anger  which  surprised 
and  dismayed  her.  Knowing  as  she  did  a  good 
deal  about  his  various  liaisons,  she  naturally 
assumed  that  reports  of  them  had  somehow 
reached  Nita's  ears.  This  would  account,  not 
only  for  the  young  girl's  attitude,  but  also  for 
Drake's  anger,  his  ill-concealed  anxiety  and 
discomfort  when  they  met,  as  under  the  circum- 
stances it  was  unavoidable  that  they  should 
meet,  sooner  or  later.  Of  course,  it  was  ab- 
surd of  Nita  to  make  a  fuss  about  such  things, 
but  quite  characteristic,  thought  Mrs.  Wynne, 
with  one  of  her  exaggerated  shrugs. 

The  truth  was  that  Drake  had  nourished 


92     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

many  hopes  regarding  the  inevitable  en- 
counter. It  seemed  to  him  unthinkable  that 
because  of  what  he  considered  as,  at  worst,  a 
slight  defection  from  the  strict  code  of  honor, 
he  should  forever  lose  the  girl  who  was  once 
ready  to  give  herself  to  him.  He  called  down 
innumerable  anathemas  on  his  own  head  for 
the  collapse  of  his  self-control,  his  display  of  a 
passion  which  he  knew  must  have  shocked  and 
repelled  fastidious  Nita,  whose  purity  he  had 
so  often  compared  to  snow.  But  this  was  the 
kind  of  thing  any  woman,  he  believed,  always 
forgave  after  a  time.  Was  it  not,  when  all 
was  said,  a  tribute  to  her  power?  No;  his  loss 
of  control  could  only  have  caused  a  temporary, 
frightened  shrinking,  easily  atoned  for  by  hu- 
mility and  penitence.  And  surely  the  charge 
she  had  brought  against  him  could  not  long 
separate  them!  Now  that  her  ardent  sympa- 
thy for  those  two  little  ladies — why,  if  she 
took  him  back  he  would  feel  sorry  for  them 
himself! — had  had  chance  to  abate,  she 
would  see  that  she  had  expected  too  much, 
expected  conduct  absolutely  quixotic.  More- 
over, though  this  he  formulated  to  himself  less 
clearly,  he  relied  on  his  personal  charm,  on  the 
good  looks  and  gallant  presence  he  had  so 


HOOPS  OF  STEEL  93 

often  been  told  were  irresistible.  Let  them 
but  be  given  an  opportunity — 

But  the  good  looks  and  gallant  presence  and 
debonair  gayety  had  become  distasteful  to 
Nita,  things  fair  and  false,  hiding  corruption. 
She  met  him  with  the  distant  civility  one  might 
accord  a  stranger  of  doubtful  reputation,  and 
became  every  moment  more  annoyed  with  her- 
self for  being  fascinated,  like  any  silly  school- 
girl— thoughts  of  Elsie's  rhapsodies  over  her 
baritone  played  their  part  here — by  a  mere 
handsome  animal.  And  she  never  distrusted 
her  ability  to  judge  him;  not  because  of  vanity, 
but  because  the  difference  between  right  and 
wrong  seemed  to  her  so  simple  and  obvious. 
This  opinion  is  the  prerogative  of  idealistic 
youth. 

From  that  first  meeting,  Drake  came  away 
sore,  humiliated,  and  disappointed,  though  not 
disheartened.  But  as  week  succeeded  week, 
month  passed  into  month,  and  Nita's  attitude 
remained  unchanged,  thwarting  his  every  en- 
deavor at  reconciliation,  he  became  piqued  and 
angry,  as  well  as  discouraged.  The  spoken 
and  unspoken  questions  of  his  friends  were  a 
constant  irritation  to  his  festering  vanity.  He 
felt  that  he  had  lost  caste,  he  exaggerated  each 


94     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

hint  of  ridicule  or  waning  popularity.  Ger- 
aldine  alone  seemed  to  him  quite  unaltered. 

He  began  to  find  balm  in  her  society ;  more- 
over, her  heavy-lidded  eyes,  her  voluptuous 
form,  her  slow,  languid  movements  and  long 
silences  made  her  the  very  antithesis  of  Nita 
Wynne.  He  who  had  pleaded  in  vain,  who 
had  haunted  the  girl's  presence,  so  he  told  him- 
self angrily,  as  abjectly  as  a  whipped  and 
starving  cur,  was  here  master  and  lord.  No 
exactions,  no  setting  up  of  impossible  stan- 
dards !  And  yet  in  the  bottom  of  his  heart  he 
knew  all  the  while  that  it  was  just  because 'he 
was  conscious  of  having  fallen  short  of  her  ex- 
pectations that  Nita  had  regained  and  now 
held  all  the  wonder  and  reverence  and  adora- 
tion of  which  he  was  capable,  all  the  wonder 
and  reverence  she  had  lost  when  he  had  be- 
lieved her  willing  to  be  his.  Geraldine  he 
regarded  neither  with  wonder  nor  with  rever- 
ence: he  had  actually  trembled  at  the  thought 
of  touching  Nita's  hand;  he  felt  condescend- 
ingly certain  that  he  could  kiss  that  full  red 
mouth  of  Geraldine's  whenever  he  pleased. 
Yet  he  was  beginning  to  find  it  tempting.  .  .  . 

How  many  of  his  fluctuating  emotions  Ger- 
aldine understood  he  did  not  know,  neither  did 


HOOPS  OF  STEEL  95 

he  greatly  care.  And  never  for  one  moment 
did  he  question  the  accuracy  of  his  estimate  of 
her.  His  vanity  plainly  hinted  to  him  that  to 
marry  her  would  be  to  strike  Nita  in  the  face, 
to  emphasize  the  significance  of  his  outbreak 
that  memorable  afternoon.  Because  Ger- 
aldine  had  only  one  kind  of  lure  for  him,  he 
took  it  for  granted  she  was  not  merely  inca- 
pable of  exercising  any  other,  but  that  the  fact 
must  be  so  obvious  as  to  be  generally  compre- 
hended— comprehended  even  by  one  like  Nita 
Wynne. 

And  so  it  came  about  that  on  a  certain  April 
evening,  after  dancing  until  they  were  tired 
and  breathless,  they  sought  the  shadows  of 
Mrs.  Dane's  big  library.  A  broad,  high- 
backed  sofa  was  the  seat  they  chose.  Geral- 
dine  sank  down  upon  the  thick  cushions,  her 
beautiful,  scantily  veiled  bosom  rising  and  fall- 
ing quickly  with  the  panting  breath  which  was 
not  due  solely  to  the  exertions  of  the  two-step. 
Drake  was  close  beside  her,  and  the  sweet 
heavy  perfume  she  affected  rose  in  fragrant 
waves  to  his  nostrils.  Neither  spoke ;  they  had 
little  or  nothing  to  say  to  each  other,  then  or  at 
any  other  time.  He  took  her  hand;  and  pres- 
ently his  fingers  went  stealing  softly  upward 


96     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

over  the  bare  white  arm  to  where  a  narrow  vel- 
vet shoulder  strap  held  the  extremely  low-cut 
bodice  in  place.  She  moved  a  little — not  away 
from  him — and  smiled,  lifting  her  eyes  lazily 
to  his  while  her  head  tilted  backward  toward 
his  shoulder,  showing  the  splendidly  modeled 
lines  of  her  throat  to  the  best  possible  advan- 
tage. The  warm  crimson  mouth  was  very 
near  his  own.  .  .  . 

He  caught  her  in  his  arms,  kissing  her  lips, 
her  cheeks,  her  throat,  repeatedly,  gloatingly. 
In  that  intoxication  of  the  senses  which  she  had 
at  last  produced  he  found  oblivion  from  sore- 
ness and  suffering,  as  well  as  another,  very  dif- 
ferent satisfaction.  And  he  was  blind  to  the 
pain  which  blended  with  and  dimmed  the  tri- 
umph in  her  eyes. 

When  Geraldine,  next  day,  announced  their 
engagement,  he  was  quite  ready  and  willing  to 
be  congratulated. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ON   UNFAMILIAR  PATHS 

NITA  received  the  news  of  the  engagement 
with  an  outward  polite  interest  and  an 
inward  shrug,  entirely  failing  to  see  the  con- 
nection between  it  and  the  events  of  that  mo- 
mentous winter  afternoon  which  Drake  had 
hoped  would  be  plain  to  her.  Since  Geral- 
dine's  object  was,  as  Elsie  had  said,  to  marry 
somebody  who  would  and  could  pay  her  bills 
for  the  rest  of  her  natural  life,  Mr.  Drake 
would  no  doubt  serve  her  purpose.  She  her- 
self would  rather  scrub  floors  for  a  living! 
( Her  acquaintance  with  that  occupation  being 
entirely  theoretical.)  As  for  him — well,  one 
could  scarcely  expect  fidelity  in  love,  or  what 
he  ventured  to  call  love,  from  a  trickster  and  a 
cheat!  They  were  an  excellently  matched 
pair,  she  thought. 

The  wedding  took  place  early  in  the  follow- 
ing autumn,  with  the  usual  accompaniments 
of  flowers,  tulle,  satin,  bridesmaids  and  "The 
Voice  That  Breathed  O'er  Eden."  A  large 


98     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

portion  of  social  New  York  witnessed  the  cere- 
mony, among  others  the  Misses  Van  Vechten 
from  their  retreat  above  Harlem.  They  did 
not  often  leave  the  tiny  flat  on  the  fourth  floor 
of  an  elevatorless  building,  but  this  was  a 
special  occasion;  they  wanted  to  show  Mr. 
Drake  that  they  did  not  blame  him,  as  he 
doubtless  blamed  himself,  for  being  the  inno- 
cent cause  of  their  misfortune.  How  much 
the  loss  of  the  money  had  meant  to  them,  de- 
priving them  as  it  did  of  most  of  the  comforts 
and  practically  all  the  pleasures  of  their  lives, 
even  Nita  did  not  know,  but  could  only  guess. 
Betsy  was  long  since  gone  and  her  place  re- 
mained unfilled.  Some  of  the  cherished  silver 
and  eggshell  china  had  disappeared,  but  Nita 
understood  how  deeply  any  reference  to  their 
absence  or  any  offer  of  assistance,  were  it  ever 
so  delicately  worded,  would  wound  the  two 
ladies'  sensitive  pride.  She  did  what  she 
could;  since  they  firmly  though  gently  refused 
to  take  help  even  from  Donald  Forsythe,  she 
did  not  dare  try  to  do  much.  Him  she  met 
frequently,  his  relationship  to  Atkinson  Mat- 
thews sufficing  to  render  him  persona  grata 
in  a  society  always  ready  to  take  any  pre- 
sentable young  man  to  its  somewhat  chilly 


bosom,  but  after  that  one  vigorous  denuncia- 
tion of  those  he  considered  responsible  for  the 
ruin  of  the  many  small  investors  who  believed 
in  the  North  Eastern,  he  never  again  men- 
tioned the  subject.  Had  she  understood  him 
better,  Nita  would  have  recognized  this  as  a 
sign  that  his  desire  to  "make  it  hot"  for  the 
manipulators  of  the  scheme  had  not  dimin- 
ished; but  neither  she  nor  any  one  else  sus- 
pected that  he  had  a  settled  selfless  purpose 
behind  his  apparently  commonplace  life. 
They  occasionally  had  a  pleasant  little  talk  at 
some  dinner  or  theater  party,  but  it  was  always 
their  social  and  never  their  real  selves  that  thus 
encountered  each  other. 

Nita  never  forgot  to  mention  these  meetings 
when  she  went  to  see  the  Misses  Van  Vechten, 
which  she  did  as  often  as  she  could,  trying  to 
talk  as  gayly  as  of  old,  despite  the  troublesome 
lump  in  her  throat.  They  did  not  "make  a 
fuss,"  and  they  would  have  been  much  annoyed 
had  she  made  the  tiniest  kind  of  one.  Now,  as 
always,  the  sight  of  them,  so  frail  and  shabby 
and  gracious,  renewed  her  contempt  for  Ru- 
dolph Drake.  Did  Geraldine  know  what  he 
was,  she  wondered;  and  knowing,  would  she 
care? 


100     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

She  went  after  the  little  ladies  and  insisted 
on  driving  them  from  the  church  to  the  recep- 
tion, where  she  was  absorbed  in  them  and  in 
Elsie's  delight  over  the  removal  of  one  of  the 
inconvenient  sisters  and  her  own  appearance 
as  flower  girl.  Her  thoughts  thus  preoccu- 
pied, she  failed  to  notice  the  slight  stiffening  of 
Drake's  face  when  it  came  her  turn  to  congrat- 
ulate him,  or  the  quick,  sidelong  look  the  bride 
gave  her  new-made  husband,  a  look  very  dif- 
ferent from  her  usual  slow  glance. 

It  was  of  Elsie  and  her  problematical  future 
that  she  was  thinking  as  she  drove  home  beside 
the  stepmother  with  whom  she  appeared  on 
formal  occasions ;  their  relations  might  perhaps 
have  become  more  cordial  had  they  been  less 
meticulously  polite.  Could  she  not  do  some- 
thing to  help  the  pretty  child  who  so  often  ran 
to  her  with  her  troubles — counteract,  to  some 
small  extent  at  least,  the  injurious  atmosphere 
in  which  she  was  being  brought  up  ?  She  half 
suspected  that  what  Elsie  valued  in  her  was 
rather  the  patient  listener  than  the  adviser ;  yet 
she  knew  she  had  exerted  a  restraining  influ- 
ence, had  prevented  her  from  doing  various 
things  not  only  foolish,  but  actually  dangerous. 
The  rhapsodies  about  the  baritone  had  given 


ON  UNFAMILIAR  PATHS      101 

place  to  even  more  fervent  ones  over  a  young 
riding  master  with  "the  loveliest  eyes!"  who 
called  himself  a  baron  and  subsequently  eloped 
with  one  of  his  pupils — somewhat,  it  must  be 
confessed,  to  Nita's  relief.  Elsie  might  easily 
compromise  herself  beyond  hope  of  social  re- 
demption under  the  sway  of 'that  rashness  so 
curiously  contrasting  with  her  acquired  world- 
liness.  She  herself  had  been  taught  by  experi- 
ence, and  now  she  was  forever  done  with  ro- 
mance. She  was  thankful  for  her  escape ;  sup- 
pose she  had  not  discovered  what  Rudolph 
Drake  really  was  until  after  she  was  married 
to  him — what  then? 

"Are  you  going  on  with  me  to  the  Cartons', 
Nita?"  asked  Mrs.  Wynne.  "Or  shall  I  drop 
you  at  the  house?" 

"At  the  house,  please.  I'm  dining  with 
Mrs.  Bartlett  to-night,  and  I've  only  just  time 
to  dress." 

But  when  she  arrived  home  Nita  did  not  im- 
mediately go  to  her  room,  although  it  was  long 
after  six;  Mrs.  Bartlett  lived  on  Washington 
Square,  and  the  dinner  was  to  be  at  half -past 
seven,  so  that  they  could  get  to  the  Metropol- 
itan by  the  end  of  the  first  act.  At  the  foot  of 
the  stairway  she  paused,  wondering  if  her 


102     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

father  were  in  his  room,  wondering  if  they  two 
were  once  more  alone  together  as  they  had  been 
for  so  many  years.  One  of  those  loving  im- 
pulses which  had  so  often  led  her  to  reach 
vainly  out  to  him  across  the  gulf  his  marriage 
had  opened  between  them,  drew  her  on  now. 
She  would  go  and  ask  him  how  he  liked  her  new 
gown.  Up  the  stairs  she  ran  and  tapped 
lightly  on  his  door. 

There  was  no  answer,  and  she  tapped  again. 
Perhaps  he  had  fallen  asleep  in  his  chair,  as  he 
had  occasionally  done  of  late.  Or  perhaps  he 
had  been  detained  down-town;  the  important 
meeting  which  had  prevented  him  from  going 
to  the  wedding  might  have  lasted  longer  than 
was  usual.  She  would  just  slip  in  and  leave 
the  violets  she  was  wearing  on  his  desk;  that 
would  please  him. 

Once  more  she  knocked;  then  opened  the 
door.  He  was  there,  sitting  in  his  big  sleepy- 
hollow  chair  by  the  reading  lamp,  an  unfolded 
newspaper  on  his  knee,  his  head  sunk  forward 
on  his  breast.  At  first  she  thought  he  was 
asleep :  she  tiptoed  forward,  trying  to  make  no 
noise,  yet  wishing  he  would  awake  and  speak 
to  her. 

A  sudden  fear  seized  her ;  she  ran  to  him  and 


ON  UNFAMILIAR  PATHS      103 

put  her  arms  about  him,  drawing  the  heavy 
head  down  on  her  warm  young  shoulder. 
And  as  that  inert  head  fell  against  her,  she  saw 
the  hideously  twisted  face.  .  .  . 

"My  dear  Miss  Wynne," — James  Hamilton 
Carton,  Mr.  Wynne's  lawyer  and  Mrs.  Car- 
ton's husband,  spoke  gently  and  rather  com- 
passionately, in  the  hesitating  way  which  was 
habitual  to  him,  and  always  fretted  impetuous 
Nita — "my  dear  Miss  Wynne,  please  don't 
talk  of  troubling  me.  I  shall  be  glad  to  ex- 
plain anything  you — er — don't  quite  under- 
stand." 

Nita  threw  back  her  heavy  crape  veil  with  a 
quick,  impatient  gesture. 

"I  wasn't  altogether  myself  when  you  read 
me — his  will."  She  paused  an  instant  to  con- 
trol her  voice. 

Mr.  Carton,  who  had  long  since  been  told 
how  she  had  found  her  father  sitting  in  his 
chair  just  after  the  paralytic  stroke  which  a 
fortnight  later  had  been  followed  by  the  one 
that  killed  him,  nodded  gravely. 

"I  would  like  to  know  exactly  how  much 
I  have,  please.  I  believe  the  house — ?" 

"The  house  and  its  contents  go  to  your — er 


104     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

— to  Mrs.  Wynne,"  said  the  lawyer  briefly, 
looking  away  from  her.  In  the  light  of  the 
knowledge  which  was  his  and  which  he  must 
now  pass  on  to  her,  her  youth,  her  black 
clothes,  her  luxurious  furs  and  daintily  expen- 
sive air,  made  her  seem  doubly  pathetic.  He 
did  not  enjoy  his  task. 

Nita  winced.  The  house  and  its  contents: 
all  her  mother's  purchases,  all  the  furnishings 
of  her  home,  the  objects  which  had  been  famil- 
iar to  her  so  far  back  as  she  could  remember, 
now  belonged — to  Mrs.  Ashurst.  She  would 
not  give  her  that  other  name !  She  caught  her 
lower  lip  in  her  little  white  teeth,  striving  to 
check  its  trembling.  But  although  she  had 
not  as  yet  fully  recovered  from  the  nervous 
shock  occasioned  by  her  discovery  on  that 
bright  autumn  afternoon,  she  forced  herself  to 
ask  steadily:  "And  what  else?" 

"His  personal  property — everything  he  had 
except  the  house  and  its  contents — Mr. 
Wynne  divided  between  his — er — wife  and 
you." 

"That  means  his  bonds  and — and  things  of 
that  kind?" 

"Yes.     Quite  right." 

Nita  drew  a  long  breath.     Then  she  was  not, 


ON  UNFAMILIAR  PATHS      105 

as  she  had  feared  from  her  confused  memory 
of  the  will  as  Mr.  Carton  had  read  it  aloud  to 
her,  absolutely  penniless.  But  she  wanted 
thoroughly  to  understand  her  position.  "In 
that  case,  I  have  an  income  of  my  own?" 

"Yes,"  Mr.  Carton  said  again,  and  paused. 
The  moment  so  unpleasant  to  him  had  come. 
"Yes;  you  have  an  income  of  your  own — er — 
such  as  it  is." 

"Such  as  it  is?"  Nita  echoed  quickly.  How 
cruelly  long-winded  he  was ! 

"Your  father,"  Mr.  Carton  said  slowly,  his 
eyes  on  the  pencil  with  which  he  was  tapping 
the  open  desk  before  him,  "your  father,  as  you 
of  course  know,  was  not  a  rich  man.  He  re- 
ceived— er — a  large  salary,  but  he  spent  all  of 
it,  and  during — er — recent  years,  more  than  all 
of  it.  Most  of  what  he — er — had  left  was  in 
the  house,  which  isn't  mortgaged." 

Nita's  nervous  impatience  was  becom- 
ing almost  uncontrollable.  She  spoke  imperi- 
ously. "Please  tell  me  exactly  how  much  I 
have." 

"I  can't  tell  you  exactly  until  the  estate  has 
been  settled  up  and  the  debts  paid.  But  in 
round  numbers" — his  manner  was  more  delib- 
erate than  ever — "in — er — round  numbers — " 


106     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Well,  how  much?" 

"About  twelve  thousand  dollars.  Which  if 
— er — wisely  invested,  means  an  income  of — 
er — say  six  hundred  dollars  a  year." 

Six  hundred  dollars  a  year!  Her  personal 
allowance  had  been  nearly  thrice  that  amount. 

She  was  silent  a  moment,  trying  to  realize 
just  what  it  meant,  just  what  it  was  going  to 
mean  to  her. 

"It  seems  on  the  face  of  it  an  unjust  will," 
Mr.  Carton  explained  apologetically.  "But 
when  Mr.  Wynne  executed  it,  shortly  after  his 
marriage,  he — er — anticipated  living  until  you 
should — er — yourself — ' ' 

"I  am  not  criticizing  my  father,  Mr.  Carton. 
I  only  want  to  know  what  I  have  to  live 
on." 

"Oh,  but  of  course,  my  dear  young  lady,  you 
couldn't  possibly  live  on  your  income!"  Mr. 
Carton  was  so  appalled  at  the  thought  that  he 
actually  omitted  his  customary  hesitations  and 
"ers." 

Nita  rose.  "Thank  you  very  much,  Mr. 
Carton.  I  won't  take  up  any  more  of  your 
time.  Perhaps  you  could  tell  me,  though,  how 
soon  I  can  expect  to  get  my  money?" 

"The  principal  is  left  in  trust.     Until  you 


ON  UNFAMILIAR  PATHS      107 

are  thirty  you  only  receive  the — er — the  in- 
come." 

Here  was  another  disagreeable  surprise. 
But  this  time  she  did  not  wince. 

"And  that  I  will  get  at  once,  I  hope?" 

Again  Mr.  Carton  paused.  He  could  not 
bear  to  tell  her  of  the  months  which  must  elapse 
before  even  that  would  be  hers.  He  was  her 
trustee,  and  rich;  not  often  generous,  he  sud- 
denly decided  to  advance  the  money  out  of  his 
own  pocket,  mentally  excusing  himself  for 
such  unprecedented  rashness  on  the  ground 
that  there  was  very  little  danger  of  his  losing 
it  and  it  would  be  only  a  few  dollars,  any- 
way. 

"Yes;  on  the  first  of  December — a  week 
from  to-morrow." 

Then  she  bade  him  good-by  and  left  the 
office,  very  erect  in  her  black  clothes,  holding 
her  little  head  very  high  under  the  heavy  crape 
veil,  but  feeling  as  though  she  had  been  flung 
overboard  and  was  not  at  all  sure  of  her  ability 
to  keep  herself  afloat.  Six  hundred  a  year! 
Six  hundred  a  year ! 

The  words  kept  time  to  the  throbbing  of  the 
pulses  in  her  aching  temples.  What  was  she 
to  do?  What  could  she  do?  One  thing  only 


108     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

was  certain:  she  would  not  live  on  the  charity 
of  the  former  Mrs.  Ashurst. 

Returning  from  the  lawyer's  office,  she  went 
straight  to  her  own  room,  locked  the  door,  di- 
vested herself  of  her  heavy  outdoor  garments, 
and  sat  down  to  consider  the  situation.  What 
could  she  do  to  earn  money?  What  faculty, 
what  knowledge  had  she  that  was  marketable? 
Like  most  girls  of  her  class,  even  in  these  more 
enlightened  days,  she  had  been  trained  to 
financial  dependence.  Such  a  thing  as  earn- 
ing her  own  living  had  never  even  occurred  to 
her,  and  here  she  was,  face  to  face  with  the 
urgent  necessity  for  doing  just  that  very  un- 
thought-of  thing.  Her  income  would  pur- 
chase shelter  of  a  kind,  she  supposed,  and  per- 
haps a  little  bread.  But  the  rest?  Where 
was  that  to  come  from? 

She  danced  well;  but  the  craze  which  was  to 
make  that  accomplishment  valuable  was  still 
to  come.  She  played  and  sang  nicely;  her 
French  was  Parisian,  her  Italian  more  than 
fair;  but  she  knew  how  difficult  it  was  for  even 
an  expert  teacher  to  find  pupils.  People 
might  take  lessons  from  her  in  order  to  help 
her;  she  would  be  "one  of  my  charities";  she 
had  heard  the  phrase  more  times  than  a  few. 


ON  UNFAMILIAR  PATHS      109 

Her  painting?  She  gave  a  little  shrug;  she 
had  no  illusions  on  the  score  of  her  talent.  It 
sufficed  for  amusing  dinner  cards — 

Dinner  cards!  Well,  why  not?  Some  of 
the  shops  kept  them,  but  they  were  neither  well 
done  nor  especially  clever.  People  had  al- 
ways spoken  enthusiastically  about  hers;  she 
would  go  to  Bertrand's  to-morrow  and  take 
some  to  show.  If  they  liked  and  bought  them, 
why  then  her  problem  was  solved! 

Her  pale  cheeks  flushed,  and  the  old  glori- 
ous sense  of  adventure  tingled  in  her  veins. 
With  her  usual  optimism,  her  usual  leaping  at 
conclusions,  she  saw  herself  receiving  large 
sums  of  money  for  pleasant  and  easy  work 
which  she  could  do  at  home — 

At  home !     She  had  no  home — now. 

This  house  and  all  its  contents,  except  the 
furnishings  of  her  own  room,  belonged  to  Mrs. 
Ashurst.  Every  moment  she  remained  in  it 
she  was  doing  exactly  what  she  had  sworn  she 
would  not  do — living  on  that  woman's  bounty. 
She  would  go  to-morrow,  not  to  Bertrand's, 
but  in  search  of  some  place,  some  corner,  no 
matter  what  or  where,  which  she  could  call  her 
own. 

She  wished  she  knew  some  one  as  young  and 


110     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

as  poor  as  herself  who  could  give  her  a  little 
advice.  Among  all  her  numerous  acquaint- 
ances there  was  not  one  self-supporting 
woman.  And  then  she  thought  of  Donald 
Forsythe.  She  didn't  know  him  very  well, 
and  she  needn't  tell  him  how  little  money  she 
had,  but  she  could  question  him  about  rooms, 
and  how  and  where  girls  like  herself  lived;  he 
probably  knew  quantities  of  them.  He  would 
do  his  best  for  her,  as  he  would  for  any  one, 
whether  man,  woman,  or  child,  who  asked  his 
help ;  she  was  so  sure  of  this  that  she  took  it  as 
a  matter  of  course.  In  a  week  the  first  install- 
ment of  her  income  would  be  paid  her,  and 
come  what  might,  on  that  day  she  would  leave 
this  house  where  she  only  lived  on  sufferance. 
And  she  would  tell  Mrs.  Ashurst  what  she 
meant  to  do,  now — this  very  evening. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

NITA  SHUTS  THE  DOOR 

AFTER  dinner,  a  dinner  whose  long 
silences  were  broken  only  by  an  occa- 
sional perfunctory  remark,  Nita  said: 

"I'd  like  to  talk  to  you  for  a  few  minutes, 
if  you  are  not  too  busy?" 

"Suppose  we  go  to  the  library?  We  might 
have  our  coffee  there." 

The  former  Mrs.  Ashurst  spoke  even  more 
sweetly  than  usual.  She  had  quickly  decided 
that  this  would  be  an  excellent  opportunity  to 
tell  her  stepdaughter  that  much  as  she  re- 
gretted her  inability,  et  cetera,  it  would  be  quite 
impossible  for  her  to  support  two  people  on 
so  small  an  income  as  hers,  et  cetera,  et  cetera. 
It  pleased  her  to  shape  the  phrases  in  her  mind 
as  she  went  up  the  short  flight  of  stairs  to  the 
library,  for  this  period  of  mourning  was  so 
deadly  dull  that  it  made  any  incident  more 
than  welcome.  She  meant  to  shorten  it  as 
much  as  was  compatible  with  a  due  observance 


112     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

of  the  conventionalities,  but  she  had  long  since 
resolved  not  to  give  people  any  chance  to  say 
disagreeable  things  about  her  and  had  tempo- 
rarily abandoned  rouge,  pale  cheeks  being  ap- 
propriate to  a  new-made  widow. 

However,  she  did  not  intend  to  broach  the 
matter  at  once,  regarding  this  as  one  of  the 
occasions  when  it  is  best  to  let  the  other  person 
have  the  floor  for  a  while.  She  settled  herself 
in  a  corner  of  the  sofa,  dropped  a  cream  pep- 
permint in  her  coffee,  and  meditatively 
watched  it  dissolve. 

Nita  had  slipped  into  one  of  the  big  up- 
holstered armchairs.  Physically  she  was  very 
tired  and  this  room,  so  full  of  associations  for 
her,  seemed  to  sap  her  nervous  energy.  In 
this  very  chair  had  she  often  curled  herself  up, 
a  big-eyed,  wondering  child,  to  pore  over  the 
marvels  of  The  Arabian  Nights;  almost  op- 
posite was  the  sofa  whose  tasselled  fringe  she 
had  spent  a  happy  and  industrious  afternoon 
hacking  off  with  her  mother's  largest  scissors 
in  one  of  her  innumerable  games  of  make- 
believe — 

Mrs.  Wynne's  inquiring  glance  gave  the 
needed  spur  to  Nita's  pride.  With  a  con- 
scious, determined  effort  she  spoke  firmly. 


NITA  SHUTS  THE  DOOR      113 

"I  went  down  to  Mr.  Carton's  office  this 
afternoon,"  she  began,  and  stopped. 

"Yes?"  said  Mrs.  Wynne  with  polite  inter- 
est, after  allowing  the  pause  to  last  just  long 
enough. 

"He  told  me  about  the  arrangements  my 
father  had  made.  I  had  not  realized  before 
what  my  position  here  was." 

"Yes?"  said  Mrs.  Wynne  again.  Then  she 
wondered  whether  the  girl  could  possibly  be 
going  to  ask  for  permission  to  stay  where  she 
was.  Such  a  request  would  certainly  give 
the  situation  a  perplexing  turn!  "Of  course 
— I  quite  understand,"  she  murmured  sympa- 
thetically. "The  shock — and  your  illness — " 

These  were  topics  Nita  did  not  intend  to 
discuss.  And  she  had  no  desire  for  the  former 
Mrs.  Ashurst's  sympathy. 

"I'm  afraid  I'll  have  to  spend  a  few  days 
looking  for  a  place  to  live."  She  wished  she 
could  announce  that  she  had  made  arrange- 
ments to  depart  next  morning.  "And  my  in- 
come isn't  to  begin  until  the  first  of  December. 
I'm  going  then." 

Mrs.  Wynne  decided  that  on  the  whole  mat- 
ters were  working  themselves  out  very  satis- 
factorily. She  did  not  want  to  quarrel  with 


114     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

the  stepdaughter  who  was  socially  so  much 
more  influential  than  herself,  and  though  she 
must  of  course  be  able  to  tell  people  she  "had 
offered  the  poor  child  a  home,"  it  would  have 
been  extremely  embarrassing  to  have  her  ac- 
cept it. 

So  she  considered  the  situation  a  moment, 
and  then  remarked  quietly,  her  eyes  fixed  on 
the  very  high-heeled  black  suede  slippers 
crossed  on  the  footstool  in  front  of  her:  "I 
may  as  well  tell  you  at  once  that  I've  put  this 
house  on  the  market.  It  ought  to  bring  a 
fairly  good  price,  and  I  can't  afford  to  live  in 
it — unfortunately. ' ' 

She  was  surprised  to  hear  an  apologetic  note 
in  her  voice. 

"All  that,"  said  Nita,  very  low,  "is  your  af- 
fair, not  mine." 

But  she  had  a  swift  vision  of  the  dear  old 
house  torn  down  or  altered  beyond  recognition, 
its  contents  scattered  to  the  four  corners  of 
the  earth. 

"Yes,  of  course!"  and  again  the  apologetic 
note  was  in  Mrs.  Wynne's  voice.  "I  only 
wanted  you  to  know  why  I  couldn't  invite  you 
to  stay  on  here.  I  expect  to  get  most  of  my 
income  from  the  sale  of  the  house." 


NITA  SHUTS  THE  DOOR      115 

Nita's  clear  eyes  challenged  her  stepmother's 
reluctant  ones,  still  busy  contemplating  the 
black  suede  slippers.  Suddenly  her  frayed 
nerves  snapped,  and  she  exclaimed ;  "I  thought 
you  were  getting  plenty  of  money  from  your 
former — " 

She  broke  off,  blushing  hotly.  She  would 
have  given  much  to  be  able  to  recall  her 
words. 

Mrs.  Wynne  flinched.  She  dM  not  under- 
stand Nita's  point  of  view,  did  not  understand 
how  degrading  the  girl  thought  it  was  to  ac- 
cept money  under  such  conditions.  Only  she 
realized  more  plainly  than  ever  that  it  was  not 
jealousy  which  had  prompted  Nita's  attitude 
towards  herself.  She  would  have  been  more 
than  human  had  she  not  met  intolerance  with 
intolerance,  not  longed  to  return  scorn  for 
scorn. 

"You're  entirely  mistaken,"  she  replied  in- 
dignantly. "I  have  practically  nothing  of  my 


own." 


It  was  not  necessary  to  explain  that  she  had 
taken  a  sum  down  in  lieu  of  alimony,  intend- 
ing to  live  on  this  capital  until  she  could  find 
a  second  husband,  and  that  it  was  nearly  all 
gone  when  she  at  last  succeeded. 


116     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"That  was  the  reason  my  husband  disposed 
of  his  property  as  he  did,"  she  went  on.  "He 
wanted  to  protect  me.  Besides,  at  that  time 
he  thought — indeed,  we  both  thought — you 
were  engaged  to  my  brother." 

This  was  a  two-edged  thrust,  very  gratify- 
ing to  Mrs.  Wynne. 

"We  were  both,"  she  added  gently,  "greatly 
surprised  and — er — grieved,  when  he  told  us 
he  was  to  marry  Miss  Haight." 

The  implication  that  it  was  for  Nita  they 
had  grieved  was  grossly  obvious. 

Nita  gave  a  slight,  indifferent  little  shrug. 
The  former  Mrs.  Ashurst  saw  with  disappoint- 
ment the  failure  of  her  thrust,  and  yet — the 
girl  seemed  so  white,  so  fragile,  sitting  there 
in  her  lusterless  black ;  the  hands  lying  clasped 
on  her  lap  were  so  slender,  so  helpless-look- 
ing! And  she  was  so  pathetically  young,  ap- 
parently so  utterly  unfitted  to  make  her  own 
way  in  the  great  outer  world  of  which  she 
was  ignorant  as  any  child! 

Oh,  well,  she  had  six  hundred  a  year!  She 
needn't  starve,  and  it  would  do  her  good  to 
learn  something  of  her  own  lack  of  importance. 
Besides,  she'd  probably  come  and  ask  help  long 
before  she  was  in  actual  want — an  idea  which 


NITA  SHUTS  THE  DOOR      117 

showed  how  little  Mrs.  Wynne  knew  her  step- 
daughter. 

"I  really  do  not  think,"  Nita  remarked  with 
that  chiseled  enunciation  which  gave  such 
peculiar  emphasis  to  her  words,  "I  really  do 
not  think  we  need  discuss  the  whys  and  where- 
fores of  the  present  situation.  It  exists ;  surely 
that  is  quite  enough." 

Something  of  irritation,  something  of  com- 
punction, prompted  Mrs.  Wynne's  next 
speech.  The  brief  vision  of  Nita  on  her  knees 
had  vanished  forever  at  sound  of  the  clear, 
unhesitating  voice.  The  personality  behind 
those  tones  was  more  than  dynamic,  a  force 
difficult  to  control,  impossible  to  subdue. 
Broken  the  girl  might  be,  but  bent — never. 

"Yes,  you're  right,"  she  said  slowly. 
"Still —  What  are  you  going  to  do,  Nita? 
We've  never  been  friends,  you  and  I — " 

"That  too,"  Nita  interposed  quickly,  "is  a 
matter  we  need  not  discuss."  Her  refusal  to 
answer  her  stepmother's  question  was  none  the 
less  pointed  for  being  indirect.  She  had  no 
belief  in  "that  woman's"  kindliness  or  good  in- 
tentions. 

Mrs.  Wynne  made  a  slightly  extravagant 
gesture  of  acquiescence. 


118     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Again  I  agree,"  she  replied.  "But  up  to 
now  we've  avoided  taking  tout  le  monde  into 
our  confidence,  and  I  don't  see  why  we 
shouldn't  continue  to  do  so.  It  seems  to  me 
it  would  be  better  in  every  way  for  us  to  meet 
now  and  then." 

An  instant  Nita  considered  the  proposal. 
Her  stepmother  had  made  a  direct,  apparently 
straightforward  appeal  to  her  pride,  to  her 
instinctive  desire  to  keep  her  personal  affairs 
to  herself.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  that  the 
former  Mrs.  Ashurst  hoped  thus  to  guard  her- 
self from  possible  accusations  and  from  the 
snubbing  Nita's  friends  might  give  her  should 
the  facts  of  their  relation  become  known. 

It  was  very  quiet  in  this  big,  comfortable 
room  which  had  once  been  the  center  of  a 
house  that  was  a  real  home,  a  house  over  which 
a  solemn  hush  now  brooded,  as  though  it  held 
its  breath  in  anticipation  of  its  fast  approach- 
ing destruction.  Through  the  curtained  win- 
dows, closed  to  keep  out  the  chill  of  the  Novem- 
ber air,  came  only  a  distant  murmur,  punctu- 
ated occasionally  by  the  insolent  cry  of  a  motor 
horn.  It  was  as  if  that  spirit  of  Death,  which 
had  entered  so  recently,  now  enveloped  it  all. 

And  at  the  very  heart  of  this  foreboding 


NITA  SHUTS  THE  DOOR     119 

stillness,  like  a  spark  of  flame  amid  a  heap 
of  ashes,  sat  Nita,  intensely,  gloriously  alive, 
for  all  her  mourning  and  fatigue  and  pallor. 

At  last  she  spoke,  slowly  for  her.  Pride 
and  common  sense  and  loyalty  to  the  dead 
alike  advised  a  course  other  than  the  one  in- 
clination would  have  chosen.  Unless  she 
meant  to  cut  herself  off  from  most  of  her 
friends,  she  could  not  avoid  meeting  her  step- 
mother quite  frequently — and  to  be  ostensibly 
on  pleasant  terms  with  the  woman  he  had  mar- 
ried was  to  do  something  towards  shielding  her 
father  from  criticism.  Young  as  she  was,  she 
had  had  too  much  social  experience  not  to  know 
what  would  be  said  of  him,  once  the  provisions 
of  his  will  became  public  property. 

"Yes,  you're  right.  It  will  be  best  for  us 
to  see  each  other  now  and  then." 

"C'est  convenu,  alors"  Mrs.  Wynne  had 
been  trying  to  stop  using  her  once  beloved 
French  phrases,  but  the  affectation  had  be- 
come a  habit,  and  now  they  occasionally  slipped 
out  before  she  was  aware  of  it.  Somehow, 
of  late  these,  like  her  exaggerated  dressing  and 
make-up,  had  been  rendering  her  vaguely  un- 
comfortable, though  to  the  latter  she  had  clung 
with  a  certain  sense  of  defiance.  She  went 


120     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

on  hurriedly,  still  refusing  to  meet  Nita's  clear, 
steady  eyes : 

"I'll  probably  stay  here  until  I  go  out  of 
town  in  the  spring — there's  no  sense  in  moving 
twice.  Next  winter  I'll  rent  a  small  apart- 
ment in  some  hotel — the  Devonport,  I  guess. 
Anyway,  I'll  let  you  know,  and  you  must  be 
sure  to  give  me  your  address." 

"Very  well,"  Nita  rose  and  stood,  straight 
and  slim  in  her  flowing  black  robes,  beside  the 
big  chair  wherein  a  golden-haired  child  had 
once  nestled,  an  enthusiastic,  wide-eyed  elf  ab- 
sorbed in  dreams  and  fancies.  Now  she  hesi- 
tated ;  habitual  consideration  for  another's  feel- 
ings, even  when  that  other  was  this  woman  she 
despised,  rendered  it  difficult  for  her  to 
pronounce  the  words  she  was  determined  to 
speak.  For  she  would  accept  nothing  from 
the  former  Mrs.  Ashurst.  "Very  well,"  she 
repeated;  and  then  added,  resolutely  yet  al- 
most shyly:  "If  you  will  be  so  kind  as  to  let 
me  know  what  my  share  of  the  household  ex- 
penses during  these  past  weeks  amounts  to, 
I  will  send  you  a  check  at  once." 

Fervently  she  hoped  that  that  part  of  her 
annual  allowance  still  remaining  in  the  bank 
would  be  enough  to  cover  her  indebtedness. 


NITA  SHUTS  THE  DOOR      121 

But  should  it  fall  short  she  had  a  few  jewels. 
Not  many,  but  they  would  probably  suffice. 

Once  more,  Mrs.  Wynne  flinched. 

She  too  had  risen  now,  and  they  stood  fac- 
ing each  other  across  the  hushed  room.  Both 
were  clad  in  unrelieved  black,  and  this  similar- 
ity of  hue  made  more  noticeable  the  austere 
simplicity  of  the  one  costume,  the  extravagance 
of  the  other.  Girl  and  woman,  bearing  the 
same  name,  grieving  or  supposedly  grieving 
for  the  same  man,  they  strove  to  measure  each 
other.  And  it  was  the  elder  whose  eyes  pres- 
ently wavered  and  fell. 

"Good  night,"  Nita  said,  speaking,  to  her 
own  surprise,  in  a  tone  which  was  almost  one 
of  compassion.  "Good  night."  And  walked 
quietly,  unhurriedly  out  of  the  room. 

A  week  later,  Nita  Wynne  left  the  home 
once  hers,  left  it  for  the  last  time.  And  as 
she  closed  the  heavy  door,  she  felt  that  she  was 
leaving  behind  her  all  her  joyous,  carefree 
youth.  She  was  going  out  into  the  unknown 
— going  out  entirely,  fearlessly,  adventur- 
ously alone.  In  spite  of  her  grief,  in  spite 
of  the  homesickness  which  gripped  her  throat 
as  the  door  shut,  in  spite  of  her  vague  sense 
that  disappointments,  perils  even,  were  lying 


122     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

in  wait  to  confront  her,  her  whole  being  thrilled 
with  the  old  familiar  consciousness  of  drama, 
the  old  eager  desire  to  know  and  to  experience. 
She  expected  trials  and  tests,  and  nerved  her- 
self to  meet  them.  For  if  she  was  stern,  un- 
compromising in  her  judgment  of  others — of 
Drake  and  Geraldine  and  the  former  Mrs. 
Ashurst — she  was  not  one  whit  less  stern  or 
less  exacting  in  the  demands  she  made  upon 
her  own  soul:  she  was  still  young  enough  to 
believe  with  Portia  that  it  is  easy  "to  know 
what  were  good  to  do." 

And  so,  holding  her  life  lightly  in  her  hands, 
she  set  forth  bravely  on  her  voyage  of  discov- 
ery. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AFTER  MANY  DAYS 

ALIGHT  November  fog  hung  like  a  veil 
of  thinnest  gray  chiffon  over  Gramercy 
Park.  The  faint  breeze  could  not  tear  it,  had 
indeed  scarcely  strength  enough  to  rustle  the 
few  dry  leaves  that  still  clung  despairingly  to 
the  trees,  or  to  stir  the  many  that  had  given 
up  the  struggle  and  slipped  resignedly  to  the 
ground.  The  hands  of  the  great  clock  on  the 
Metropolitan  Tower,  shining  through  the  mist, 
pointed  to  five,  as  Nita  Wynne,  her  day's 
work  done,  came  to  her  sitting-room  window. 
She  had  meant  only  to  draw  down  the  shade, 
but  she  lingered  there  by  the  window,  looking 
out.  She  was  fond  of  the  big  clock  which  had 
kept  her  company  in  many  lonely  moments, 
fonder  still  of  the  little  park  which  had  such 
numerous  and  diversified  moods  of  its  own. 
Yet  now,  after  glancing  at  her  friend  the 
clock,  she  looked  away  over  the  bare  trees  to 
Twenty-third  Street  where  cross-town  cars 
bumped  along — moving  bunches  of  lights — 


124     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

and  the  homeward  bound  crowd  was  beginning 
to  blacken  the  sidewalks.  She  liked  the  con- 
trast of  the  quiet  park  with  the  lights  of  Lex- 
ington Avenue  stretching  out  beyond  in  two 
long  lines  which  seemed  to  draw  together  until 
they  converged  in  a  point,  and  the  bustle  of  the 
cross-town  thoroughfare.  But  sometimes  the 
sight  of  that  hurrying,  turbulent  life  had  a 
curiously  saddening  effect  upon  her,  and  she 
felt  near  akin  to  the  woman  of  the  poem: 

"The  world  meanwhile,  its  noise  and  stir, 
Through  a  certain  window  facing  the  East, 
She  could  watch  like  a  convent's  chronicler." 

Her  own  window  faced  north,  not  east,  and 
her  life  was  very  far  from  conventual,  yet  she 
felt  that  behind  the  exterior  differences  the 
analogy  was  strong. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders  with  the  old 
impatient  movement.  What  more  did  she 
want;  what  was  the  cause  of  this  restless  de- 
sire to  crowd  her  days  full  of  experience  which 
had  grown  with  her  growth  and  never  left 
her  even  in  her  darkest  hours  ?  During  all  the 
years — ten,  save  for  a  week  or  two — which 
had  elapsed  since  she  closed  the  door  of  the 
house  in  East  Sixty-fourth  Street  behind  her 


AFTER  MANY  DAYS          125 

for  the  last  time,  her  life  had  surely  been  full 
enough,  varied  enough,  to  satisfy  the  most 
exigent!  She  sank  down  on  the  broad,  cush- 
ioned window  seat,  and  clasping  her  hands 
about  her  drawn-up  knees,  let  her  thoughts 
drift  back  over  the  events  and  places  of  those 
busy  years: 

That  ugly,  tiny  room  in  West  Twenty-ninth 
Street  whither  she  had  gone  ten  years  ago  in 
the  full  adventurous  glow  of  youth  and  inex- 
perience! How  well  she  remembered  every 
detail  of  its  shabby,  fly-specked  gentility,  and 
that  basement  dining  room  where  for  the  first 
time  in  her  life  she  saw  a  cruet  stand  and  tasted 
boarding-house  fare!  Her  delight  when  the 
head  of  Bertrand's  stationery  department 
praised  her  dinner  cards  and  gave  her  an  order 
was  still  fresh  in  her  memory;  and  would  she 
ever  forget  that  check,  the  first  money  she 
ever  earned,  her  feeling  of  independence  and 
of  being  a  quite  exceptional  person?  It  had 
more  than  made  up  to  her  for  all  the  discom- 
forts of  the  boarding  house!  A  taste  of  the 
sweets  of  self-reliance,  and  then — then  that 
long,  terrible  summer,  when  she  who  had  al- 
ways gone  to  the  country  by  the  end  of  May 
was  obliged  to  stay  in  the  heat-wilted  city, 


126     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

when  there  was  no  demand  for  dinner  cards, 
and  the  little  income  she  had  not  yet  learned 
how  to  manage  seemed  to  melt  away  like  snow 
in  her  hands.  .  .  . 

She  could  smile  now  as  she  remembered  what 
an  appalling,  above  all,  what  an  astonishing 
tragedy  it  had  seemed  to  the  girl  of  hardly 
twenty-one,  who  was  and  who  was  not  her  very 
self!  In  her  more  abundant  knowledge  she 
realized  that  hers  had  been  exceptionally  good 
fortune.  For  what  was  it  in  truth  but  sheer 
blind  good  luck  which  had  first  set  her  feet 
upon  the  path  she  had  since  trodden  so  suc- 
cessfully? If  she  had  not  chanced  to  be  pass- 
ing that  old-fashioned,  almost  empty  apart- 
ment house  exactly  at  the  moment  when  Dick 
Knowlton  of  the  real  estate  firm  of  Knowlton, 
Mowbray,  and  Knowlton  emerged  from  its 
shabby  entrance!  Or  if  he  had  not  been  re- 
duced to  such  a  state  of  despondency  as  to  be 
unable  to  refrain  from  exclaiming: 

"I  wish  to  goodness  I  knew  what  was  the 
matter  with  that  miserable  place!  Here  it  is 
September,  and  I  haven't  rented  a  single  soli- 
tary one  of  the  vacant  apartments.  The  build- 
ing's eating  its  head  off,  and  I  don't  know  what 
on  earth  to  do.  The  rooms  are  large — " 


AFTER  MANY  DAYS  127 

He  had  stopped  there  with  a  disconsolate 
shake  of  the  head,  and  some  good  angel  had 
prompted  her  to  say,  conventionally  enough: 

"It's  too  bad.     I  do  wish  I  could  help  you." 

"I  wonder  if  you  could?"  he  had  cried,  catch- 
ing at  a  straw.  "You  know  what  women 
want,  and  it's  the  women  we've  got  to  please. 
Come  in  and  look  the  place  over,  won't  you?" 

Well,  he  was  an  old  friend — and  she  had 
gone  with  him  into  the  building,  feeling  de- 
lightfully adventurous. 

She  smiled  again  as  she  remembered  her 
tour  through  the  dusty,  dingy  apartments,  her 
sense  of  importance,  as  though  the  fate  of  a 
nation  hung  upon  her  words !  But  her  femin- 
ine eyes  saw  much  to  which  masculine  ones  had 
been  blind,  and  her  imagination,  her  inherited 
instincts  for  beauty  and  for  home-making,  had 
come  to  her  aid.  Soon  she  had  begun  to  talk 
in  her  quick,  eager  way. 

And  ready  as  they  were  to  clutch  at  any 
feasible  ideas  which  might  help  to  render  suc- 
cessful a  building  whose  owner,  Cuthbert 
Frayne,  was  one  of  their  most  valuable  clients, 
the  real  estate  firm  had  taken  her  advice,  to 
the  unspeakable  disgust  of  a  lazy  janitor.  In 
a  little  while  the  apartment  was  rented — and 


128     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Nita  fairly  started  on  the  work  she  had  since 
continued  with  pleasure  and  profit. 

First  Knowlton,  Mowbray,  and  Knowlton, 
then  other  firms  employed  her.  And  pres- 
ently, thanks  in  great  measure,  as  she  later 
discovered,  to  the  diplomatic  and  entirely  un- 
expected endeavors  of  the  former  Mrs.  Ash- 
urst,  the  owner  of  a  certain  huge  caravansary 
on  upper  Broadway  invited  her  to  decorate 
and  furnish  an  apartment  as  a  sort  of  cross 
between  a  sample  and  an  object  lesson.  This 
she  did,  making  the  diminutive  rooms  so  at- 
tractive that  she  was  asked  to  arrange  others, 
and  managers  and  agents  sent  her  many  of 
their  tenants  who  wanted  advice  and  help. 
The  thing  developed  slowly,  of  course,  but  she 
had  a  rare  knack  for  creating  a  homelike  at- 
mojsphere,  and  her  quick  sympathy,  interest, 
and  enthusiasm,  her  way  of  taking  everything 
as  an  adventure,  proved  important  assets.  As 
the  years  passed,  her  business  grew  until  she 
now  had  about  as  much  as  she  could  attend  to, 
and  earned  a  very  comfortable  income.  Yet 
sometimes  she  could  not  help  being  aware  how 
fit  a  subject  it  was  for  the  laughter  of  the  little 
gods — that  she  who  had  none  of  her  own  should 
spend  her  days  arranging  homes  for  other  peo- 


AFTER  MANY  DAYS  129 

pie.  For  the  solitary  dwelling,  be  it  one 
room  or  twenty,  is  not  and  never  can  be  a 
home. 

She  jerked  down  the  shade  and  turned  from 
the  window,  at  the  same  time  dragging  her 
thoughts  away  from  her  own  loneliness.  She 
had  a  healthy  contempt  for  that  very  popular 
form  of  indulgence  known  as  feeling  sorry  for 
one's  self.  There  is  always  darkness  enough 
in  the  world;  to  add  one  unnecessary  shadow 
seemed  to  her  inexcusable  cowardice,  and  the 
"luxury  of  woe"  of  all  luxuries  the  most  selfish 
and  unprofitable.  Only  by  the  resolute  cul- 
tivation of  happiness — and  that  it  could  be  cul- 
tivated experience  had  taught  her — did  one 
prove  one's  possession  of  that  good  breeding 
wrhich  always  considers  the  feelings  of  other 
people. 

Now,  while  she  moved  about  the  room — a 
charmingly  comfortable,  cheery  room  it  was, 
with  its  soft  warm  golden  browns  on  walls  and 
curtains  and  cushions,  its  low,  crowded  book- 
cases, its  etchings  and  Braun  photographs,  its 
inviting  chairs,  convenient  tables  and  open 
fireplace — giving  a  touch  here  and  a  push 
there,  shaking  up  the  cushions  and  readjusting 
the  half  dozen  shaggy  chrysanthemums  in  their 


130     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Japanese  holders,  she  was  thinking  of  a  new 
problem,  or  rather,  an  old  problem  in  fresh 
guise.  It  was  not,  she  believed,  one  which  af- 
fected her  own  private  existence,  save 
through  that  sense  of  personal  responsibility 
she  had  long  ago  begun  to  feel  towards  Elsie 
Haight,  now  for  six  years  the  wife  of  Donald 
Forsythe. 

To  Nita,  as  to  the  rest  of  their  acquaintances, 
that  marriage  had  been  more  than  a  nine  days' 
wonder.  Elsie's  motives  she  had  presently 
fancied  she  understood — in  part  at  least.  For 
when  Mr.  Haight  failed,  disastrously  and  more 
than  a  little  disgracefully,  Elsie  had  found  her- 
self confronted  with  the  necessity  of  choosing 
between  the  drab  life  which  was  all  her  par- 
ents could  give  her,  Geraldine's  charity,  or 
speedy  marriage.  Donald  Forsythe  was  At- 
kinson Matthews'  nephew,  certain,  so  "every- 
body said,"  to  be  the  old  man's  heir;  and  panic- 
stricken,  fearing  to  delay  lest  worse  befall, 
Elsie  had  grasped  at  the  possibilities  he  of- 
fered her.  His  share  in  the  business  was  far 
less  easy  to  understand;  Elsie's  prettiness  and 
distress  had  no  doubt  appealed  to  his  sympa- 
thies, but  surely  there  must  have  been  some- 
thing more  than  this!  Nita  always  dismissed 


AFTER  MANY  DAYS          131 

the  question  by  shrugging  her  shoulders  at  the 
extraordinary  vagaries  of  which  masculine  pas- 
sion seemed  capable. 

Her  clearly  marked,  slightly  arched  eye- 
brows drew  together  in  a  perplexed  little  frown 
as  she  arranged  her  tea  table  and  lit  the  al- 
cohol lamp  under  the  burnished  copper  kettle. 
Her  maid  had  gone  out,  and  it  was  more  than 
probable  that  some  one  would  drop  in  for  tea. 
Ah,  there  was  the  telephone!  It  might — and 
often  did — ring  fifty  times  a  day,  but  to  Nita 
the  sound  would  never  cease  to  suggest  en- 
trancing possibilities. 

"Mr.  Forsythe  calling"  was  the  message 
which  surprised  and  a  little  alarmed  her.  Too 
imaginative  not  to  cross  bridges  long  before 
they  were  even  in  sight,  she  wondered  whether 
Elsie  could  have — the  electric  bell  whirred,  and 
she  sped  to  open  the  door. 

Since  Donald  Forsythe  married  Elsie,  Nita 
had  come  to  know  him  very  well.  So  now  one 
look  at  his  face  had  reassured  her  before  he 
said: 

"I've  come  to  talk  business.  I  know  it's 
out  of  hours,  but  now  that  Delvain's  running 
the  Colonial,  the  office  is  about  as  peaceful  as 
Broadway  on  election  night." 


132     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

She  smiled,  replying  somewhat  tentatively: 
"He  never  could  do  the  least  thing  without 
making  a  tremendous  fuss  about  it." 

Her  words  she  had  partly  learned  to  con- 
trol, but  it  was  only  by  a  conscious  effort  that 
she  could  keep  her  impatience  out  of  her  voice. 
It  was  many  weeks  since  Carter  Delvain  had 
bought  the  Colonial  Magazine,  declaring  he 
meant  to  make  it  popular  and  increase  its  cir- 
culation. If  he  carried  out  his  plans,  what 
would  become  of  Donald  Forsythe?  Editor- 
ships are  not  to  be  picked  up  every  day,  and 
Atkinson  Matthews  had  apparently  no  faint- 
est intention  of  dying  for  many  years  to  come. 
But  the  Colonial  Magazine  as  it  had  been  and 
as  it  would  be  under  the  management  of  Del- 
vain — 

"Yes;  one  has  to  get  used  to  his  fondness 
for  the  exclamatory  and  inflammatory,"  Don- 
ald said  slowly.  Then,  after  a  brief  pause,  he 
added  bluntly  and  almost  harshly:  "I'm  stay- 
ing on." 

Was  it  matter  for  congratulation,  or  for 
condolence?  When  one  considered.  .  .  . 

An  instant  she  stared  at  the  little  French 
coffee  urn  with  which  at  his  coming  she  had 
replaced  the  tea  things.  Presently  she  looked 


AFTER  MANY  DAYS          133 

up,  and  their  eyes  met.  He  read  the  question 
in  hers,  and  promptly  answered  it: 

"You  see,  he  thinks  I  have  talents  which 
weren't  allowed  a  fair  scope  on  the  old  Colon- 
ial; so  he's  raised  my  salary  to  stimulate  them 
and  squelch  any  lingering  inclinations  I  may 
have  towards  what  he  calls  'high-brow  stuff.' 
Inclination  versus  income,  inclination  depart- 
eth  forthwith,  via  the  window;  that's  his  theory. 
What  he  wants  is  'cheerful,  wholesome  fiction, 
with  strong  heart-interest  and  plenty  of 
punch.' '  Forsythe  paused ;  his  left  shoulder 
jerked,  and  he  added  laughingly:  "Behold 
in  me  the  future  purveyor — limping  but  de- 
termined— of  literary  sugar-and-water  for  the 
quarter-educated  I" 

"As  bad  as  all  that?" 

"As  bad?  Worse  and  more  of  it!  All  fic- 
tion suspected  of  the  faintest  literary  taint  is 
to  be  thrown  overboard  immediately  if  not 
sooner.  But  we're  to  have  a  high  standard 
— oh,  a  tr-remendously  high  standard!  So 
high  people  of  your  kind  won't  even  be  able  to 
see  it." 

He  stopped  suddenly.  They  both  knew 
why  he  felt  constrained  to  accept  this  task  he 
so  disliked;  but  the  reason  was  one  they  could 


134     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

not  discuss.  He  would  not,  indeed,  have 
spoken  so  plainly  had  he  not  suppressed  his 
irritation  until  an  outlet  of  some  sort  had  be- 
come an  imperative  necessity,  frankness  be- 
ing a  luxury  he  was  often  obliged  to  deny  him- 
self. For  his  marriage  had  been  but  a  few 
weeks  old  when  he  realized  that  he  had  made 
the  worst  possible  mistake — realized,  too,  some- 
thing of  the  obligation  he  had  taken  upon  him- 
self. And  that  sovereign  ideal  of  loyalty 
which  he  held  as  the  very  source  and  fount,  not 
only  of  honor  but  of  what  he  would  have  called 
"just  ordinary  decency,"  commanded  him  to 
pay  the  full  price  of  his  mistake,  every  farth- 
ing of  the  obligation  he  had  of  his  own  free  will 
bound  upon  his  life.  Men  who  loved  and  were 
happy  with  their  wives  did  not  need  to  be  so 
careful  in  speaking  of  all  that  concerned  them ; 
for  him,  eternal  vigilance  was  necessary,  if  he 
would  preserve  his  self-respect.  Not  by  word 
or  look  of  his  must  Elsie  ever  be  appraised  or 
criticized.  But  he  was  perfectly  aware  that 
she  babbled  about  her  grievances  to  whomso- 
ever would  listen  to  her. 

Half  consciously,  he  had  noticed  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  tea  he  detested.  It  was  one  of 
Nita's  many  lovable  traits  that  for  all  her  busy 


135 

life  and  the  eager  interest  in  everything  and 
every  passing  moment  which  still  made  ex- 
istence to  her  a  series  of  adventures, 
she  never  forgot  other  people's  prefer- 
ences. 

While  they  ate  and  drank  in  silence — silence 
resulting  not  from  the  lack  of  things  to  say,  but 
from  the  restrictions  circumstances  laid  on 
speech — he  watched  her  with  friendly,  medita- 
tive eyes,  remembering  the  girl  who  had  flashed 
out  upon  him  from  the  somber  setting  of  the 
Misses  Van  Vechten's  parlor.  She  had 
changed,  he  thought,  both  much  and  little. 
There  were  a  few  tiny  lines  about  the  corners 
of  the  luminous  gray-green  eyes,  and  the  eyes 
were  even  steadier  in  their  clear  gaze ;  the  fear- 
lessness of  ignorance  had  given  place  to  the 
fearlessness  of  knowledge.  The  mouth  had 
lost  something,  perhaps,  of  its  richness  of  tint, 
but  it  had  gained  in  strength  and  firmness. 
The  old  eagerness  was  there,  the  old  swift 
ardor,  but  they  were  under  better  control.  As 
she  leaned  back  in  the  big  chair,  her  attitude, 
relaxed  though  it  was,  conveyed  no  hint  of 
limpness.  She  wore  a  gown  of  orchid-tinted 
Liberty  silk  made  in  mediaeval  fashion  with 
a  curious  old  girdle  of  hand-wrought  silver 


136     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

about  the  hips — a  garment  of  the  softest,  most 
feminine  description;  and  yet  it  was  easy  to 
imagine  her  as  springing  to  her  feet  and  riding 
forth  on  a  crusade  or  as  the  leader  of  some  for- 
lorn hope. 

"You  know,"  he  exclaimed  suddenly,  his 
thoughts  returning  to  his  own  affairs,  "you 
know,  if  you  take  it  from  the  correct  and 
humorous  angle,  this  whole  business  is  a  mighty 
good  joke!  Think  of  the  Colonial  Magazine 
— the  Colonial! — being  run  by  Delvain;  and 
with  me,  of  all  people  in  the  world,  as  his 
managing  editor!  If  any  one  had  told  me  a 
few  years  ago  that  I'd  ever  work  under  Del- 
vain,  I'd  have  laughed  in  his  face — or  knocked 
him  down.  Made  a  vigorous  and  well  inten- 
tioned  attempt  to  knock  him  down,  at  least," 
he  added  with  a  slight  grimace  and  that  little 
upward  jerk  of  the  left  shoulder  which  was 
habitual  and  entirely  unconscious.  "He'd 
probably  have  had  to  take  the  will  for  the 
deed!"  ' 

Nita  winced.  His  trick  of  lightly  gibing 
at  his  own  lameness  was  something  to  which 
she  had  never  grown  accustomed;  it  always 
gave  her  a  queer  little  pang. 

"Perhaps  you'll  have  more  time  to  yourself 


AFTER  MANY  DAYS  137 

now  and  be  able  to  get  along  faster  with  your 
Trusts  book,"  she  remarked  rather  inconse- 
quently. 

There  was  an  unusual,  diffident  note  in  her 
voice.  Much  as  they  had  seen  of  each  other 
during  the  past  few  years,  thanks  to  Elsie's  in- 
sistent maintenance  of  the  intimacy,  she  had 
rarely  been  so  conscious  of  the  invisible,  steel- 
strong  web  of  restrictions  which  social  custom 
as  well  as  the  canons  of  good  taste  and  loyalty 
wove  around  them  as  at  this  moment,  when 
she  knew  that  he,  the  man  she  so  liked  and  re- 
spected and  whose  loneliness  she  divined,  real- 
izing it  to  be  even  greater  than  her  own,  longed 
to  speak  freely.  How  indeed  was  it  possible 
for  him  to  be  frank  without  at  least  tacit  re- 
proaches, tacit  disloyalty? 

For  it  was  not  the  magazine's  changed  policy 
which  was  of  import,  but  his  submission,  and 
all  that  his  submission  implied. 

He  welcomed  the  opening  she  had  made  for 
him.  This  long-contemplated  book  of  his, 
The  History  of  the  Trust  in  America,  was 
something  they  had  often  discussed.  It  in- 
terested them  both,  it  meant  a  good  deal  to  him, 
and  yet  it  was  in  a  way  an  impersonal,  and 
therefore  safe  topic.  It  did  not  approach 


138     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

those  raw,  quivering  nerve-centers  whose  very 
existence  he  strove  so  bravely,  and  in  general 
so  successfully,  to  conceal. 

"Yes,  it's  going  to  give  me  a  good  deal  more 
time.  My  business  will  be  to  buy  names  and 
give  all  due  and  proper  assistance  to  the  ad- 
vertising manager.  No  worrying  about  new 
writers!  My  gray  matter  will  be  spared  that 
strain — I'll  keep  it  all  for  the  mighty  work  no 
one  will  ever  read.  What  fools  we  are  to 
care  so  much,  to  fret  and  struggle  and  worry 
— Oh,  damn!" — as  the  telephone  rang — "I'll 
bet  my  hat  that's  Elsie!  I  promised  to  go  to 
dinner  at  the  Drakes  with  her  to-night — I 
ought  to  be  home  now,  getting  ready.  And 
I've  never  said  a  word  about  the  business  I 
came—" 

"It's  not  late.  Wait  a  minute  while  I  find 
out —  Hello!  Yes,  this  is  Miss  Wynne. — 
This  afternoon?  Oh-h!"  Her  voice  quiv- 
ered. An  instant,  and  she  spoke  steadily. 
"I'll  come  up  at  once. — Mr.  Forsythe? — Yes. 
— Yes. — Very  well.  I'll  bring  him  with  me. 
Good-by." 

The  receiver  clicked  on  the  hook.  She  re- 
turned to  Donald,  pale  now,  and  with  trem- 
bling lips. 


AFTER  MANY  DAYS          139 

"It  was  Dr.  Macneven.  Miss  Cornelia — " 
She  choked,  and  could  not  go  on. 

"What's  happened?"  Donald  demanded. 
He  had  risen  to  his  feet  and  stood  waiting. 

"Miss  Cornelia — died — an  hour  ago." 


CHAPTER  X 

THESE  TWAIN 

THEY  were  in  a  taxicab,  hastening  up- 
town. Elsie  had  been  notified  that  her 
husband  would  be  unable  to  go  out  to  dinner 
with  her,  and  Nita's  own  evening  engagements 
had  been  canceled.  Neither  spoke  as  the  cab 
bumped  along,  and  if  each  divined  many  of  the 
other's  thoughts,  more  remained  unknown. 
Nita  understood  Donald's  sorrow,  something 
of  his  rancor  against  those  who  had  taken  most 
of  its  scanty  joys  out  of  the  pitiful  gray  life 
just  ended.  But  he  was  entirely  ignorant  of 
that  past  which  Miss  Cornelia's  death  had 
brought  back  to  her  with  a  vividness  no  longer 
created  by  Rudolph  Drake's  actual  presence; 
their  relations  with  Elsie  and  with  Mrs. 
Wynne  enforced  meetings  which  to  Nita  had 
speedily  become  commonplace  if  still  slightly 
unpleasant.  Now  her  contempt  and  disgust 
were  revivified.  Miss  Cornelia  was  dead ;  and 
he — he  was  successful  and  happy!  She 


THESE  TWAIN  141 

clenched  her  hands;  at  that  moment  she  felt 
she  would  have  been  glad  to  hurt  the  man  who 
was  once  her  Sir  Galahad. 

Donald  spoke  presently,  as  if  to  himself 
rather  than  to  Nita: 

"They'd  let  me  do  so  little  for  them!  And 
they  never  complained.  She  was  always 
proud — " 

Nita's  voice  shook  just  perceptibly.  "It's 
poor  Miss  Sophia  I'm  thinking  of.  She's  al- 
ways depended  on —  What  will  she  do  now 
.  .  .  alone?" 

The  experience  gained  in  her  own  solitary 
years  lent  poignancy  to  her  tone. 

He  turned  to  her  quickly.  "You're  right. 
It's  easier  for  Aunt  Cornelia.  She's  out  of  it 
all — safe.  But  poor  Aunt  Sophia —  If  she 
could  come  to  me  for  a  while — " 

Neither  the  significance  of  the  pronoun  nor 
his  hesitancy  escaped  Nita,  though  at  the  mo- 
ment her  brain  was  busy  with  other  things. 
What  could  be  done  for  the  helpless  little  old 
lady  who  all  her  life  long  had  leaned  upon  her 
sister? 

At  last  they  reached  the  flat  and  hurried  up 
the  four  flights  of  stairs.  At  the  door  Dr. 
Macneven  met  them,  and  in  the  fewest  possi- 


142     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

ble  words  told  them  of  the  heart  attack  so 
quickly  followed  by  death.  He  had  arrived 
before  the  end,  but  she  never  recovered  con- 
sciousness. 

"Miss  Sophia  is  in  there  with  her  now.  We 
can't  get  her  away  and  I  don't  want  to  use 
force.  See  if  you  can  persuade  her." 

Nita  went  with  him  into  the  tiny  bedroom, 
where  a  single  low-turned  tremulous  gas  jet 
gave  just  enough  light  to  reveal  the  delicate, 
waxlike  face,  so  peaceful  and  so  still  upon  the 
pillow.  All  the  care,  all  the  anxiety  were 
gone;  on  the  sweet  thin  lips  the  shadow  of  a 
white  smile  hovered.  Whatever  the  years  had 
brought  her  of  grief  and  worry  and  disappoint- 
ment, whatever  trouble,  whatever  heartbreak 
had  been  hers,  Cornelia  Van  Vechten  was  at 
rest  now. 

But  in  a  low  chair  beside  the  bed  whereon 
that  quiet  figure  lay  crouched  her  sister. 
Bending  forward,  her  little  body,  so  frail  and 
shrunken,  seeming  all  drawn  together,  she  sat 
with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  placid  face.  It  was 
as  though  all  the  flickering  vitality  within  her 
were  concentrated  in  that  gaze. 

Nita  could  not  speak.  They  had  loved  her 
very  dearly,  these  two  exquisite  gentlewomen. 


THESE  TWAIN  143 

And  now  one  seemed  scarcely  farther  out  of 
her  reach  than  did  the  other. 

She  went  up  to  the  little,  withered,  crouch- 
ing form,  and  knelt  down  and  put  her  strong 
warm  arms  about  the  tiny  waist  which  had  once 
been  its  owner's  pride.  Her  throat  ached  with 
unshed  tears. 

"Hush!"  whispered  Miss  Sophia  softly. 
"Hush!  She's  asleep.  They  say  she's  dead, 
but  I  don't  believe  them.  She  wouldn't  die 
and  leave  me  all  alone." 

"Dear,  dear  Miss  Sophia!"  Nita's  voice 
was  a  caress.  "Come,  dear.  Come  with  me, 
and  let  her — sleep." 

For  the  first  time  in  all  the  years  Nita  had 
known  her,  quiet  Miss  Sophia  spoke  with  a 
touch  of  impatience: 

"No,  Nita,  no.  I  must  wait — here — until 
she  wakes  .  .  ." 

Nita  understood  then  that  any  efforts  at 
persuasion  would  be  worse  than  useless.  And 
she  mourned  for  the  living  more  than  for  the 
dead  who  was  "out  of  it  all"  now,  and  safe.  A 
long  time  she  knelt  there,  while  her  rare  tears 
fell.  Then  she  remembered  Donald  and  the 
doctor,  and  rose.  But  as  she  moved,  Miss 
Sophia's  clawlike  little  hand  clutched  at  the 


144     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

delicate  folds  of  the  orchid-tinted  gown  she  had 
not  stopped  to  change. 

"Don't  go.  Stay  with  me.  I  think — when 
she  wakes — she  may  want  you,  too." 

Nita  pressed  her  warm  lips  to  the  thin,  cling- 
ing hand: 

"I'll  come  back  in  just  a  minute,  dear.  I 
won't  leave  you,"  she  promised. 

In  the  little  parlor,  with  its  pathetic  shab- 
biness  and  still  more  pathetic  tokens  of  by- 
gone ease  and  dignity — eloquent  of  the  grind- 
ing penury  which  had  slowly  crushed  out  two 
women's  lives — she  told  the  men  of  Miss 
Sophia,  and  of  her  own  decision  to  remain  with 
her  through  the  night.  Dr.  Macneven  had 
already  sent  for  a  trained  nurse,  but  he  ac- 
quiesced at  once  in  Nita's  belief  that  she  her- 
self might  be  of  use.  He  was  obliged  to  go 
on  immediately  to  another  patient,  but  he 
would  come  back  later,  and  in  the  meanwhile 
Donald  would  remain.  He  entrusted  Nita 
with  a  quieting  draught  to  give  Miss  Sophia — 
something  he  hoped  would  soothe  her  and  make 
her  sleep,  when  they  could  easily  carry  her  to 
her  bed.  She  was  very  light,  he  said,  and  the 
words  brought  Nita  a  twinge  of  pain ;  were  the 
thinness,  the  lightness,  the  result  of  sheer  lack 


THESE  TWAIN  145 

of  food?  They  had  been  so  proud,  so  reticent! 
She  went  back  to  the  bedroom,  and  gently  and 
with  a  good  deal  of  difficulty,  coaxed  the 
stricken  little  creature  to  take  the  medicine 
prepared  for  her.  Then  the  long  vigil  began. 
Hour  after  hour  Nita  sat  beside  her,  there 
where  she  crouched,  seeming  scarcely  to 
breathe,  showing  consciousness  only  by  her 
tight  grip  on  the  strong  young  hand.  It  had 
not  been  thought  safe  to  administer  a  powerful 
drug,  and  for  some  reason  the  mild  sedative 
was  unable  to  reach  the  nerves,  so  strained  and 
concentrated.  Evening  passed  into  night. 
Nita's  thoughts  wandered  in  centuries-old 
paths,  seeking  replies  to  the  great,  never- 
answered  riddles  of  human  existence,  human 
destiny,  returning  again  and  again  to  the 
huddled  figure  at  her  side.  Midnight  came, 
but  still  Miss  Sophia  remained  motionless, 
with  fixed,  unwavering  gaze,  and  then — 

And  then  at  last  she  straightened  up,  and 
smiled,  and  dropped  back  with  a  weary  little 
sigh  upon  the  pillows  ready  to  receive  her. 
Her  hold  on  Nita's  numb  fingers  relaxed. 
She  turned  her  head,  and  gave  another  little 
sigh,  and  then  was  quite,  quite  still. 

The  shock  and  strain  had  been  too  great  for 


146     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

her  enfeebled  physique  to  withstand;  a  merci- 
ful blood  vessel  had  given  way.  But  it  was 
several  minutes  before  Nita  realized  that  she 
had  gone  to  join  the  sister  who  had  been  her 
unfailing  prop  and  comfort  throughout  her 
life,  the  sister  who  she  had  been  so  sure  "would 
not  die  and  leave  her  all  alone." 

In  the  gray  November  dawn  Donald  For- 
sythe  and  Nita  Wynne  stood  alone  together  in 
the  little  parlor.  Everything  had  been  done 
that  could  be  done  as  yet.  Both  were  very 
quiet,  but  neither  felt  any  horror  of  the  solemn 
presence  in  the  adjoining  room,  for  neither 
was  afraid  of  death.  And  in  the  calm  passing 
of  the  two  ladies  there  had  been  nothing  grue- 
some, but  only  peace  and  beauty. 

It  was  at  once  of  the  living  and  of  the  dead 
that  Donald  now  spoke,  revealing  a  long  hid- 
den, long  cherished  purpose,  as  he  could  not 
have  revealed  it  save  to  one  who  shared  his 
pity  and  his  wrath,  who  had  seen  the  victims 
suffer  and  die. 

"Ten  years  ago,"  he  said  in  a  voice  gray  and 
cold  as  iron,  "ten  years  ago  I  swore  to  myself 
I'd  do  everything  in  my  power  to  tear  the  cov- 
ering of  legality  and  respectability  off  such 


THESE  TWAIN  147 

robberies.  Those  two  embodied  for  me  all 
the  multitude  of  men  and  women  with  just  a 
little  money,  who  need  protection  so  badly. 
The  book" — his  left  shoulder  jerked — "was  a 
means  rather  than  an  end.  I've  been  working, 
hunting  facts,  and  now  this  Trans-Continental 
Trust  scandal — " 

Nita's  dark-ringed  eyes  were  alight  with  re- 
sponse and  understanding.  "Go  on,"  she  said 
quietly. 

Perhaps  the  past  few  hours  had  temporarily 
stripped  away  some  of  his  habitual  half  cyn- 
ical, half  humorous  reserve,  through  the  con- 
tact they  had  brought  him  with  those  ultimate 
realities  beside  which  our  usual  conventional 
standards  of  action  and  speech  become  so 
utterly  insignificant.  .  .  .  Certain  it  is  that  he 
spoke  to  her  with  a  frankness  he  had  never 
before  used. 

"The  North  Eastern  and  the  Trans-Conti- 
nental Trust  were  closely  connected.  And 
now — Del  vain  is  going  to  let  me  do  some 
articles — I've  pieced  things  together  bit  by 
bit—" 

Her  quick  intelligence  bridged  the  gaps  in 
his  broken  sentences.  That  libel  suit  of  the 
Trans-Continental  Trust  Company  versus  The 


148     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Morning  Star,  which  resulted  in  so  much 
financial  scandal  and  so  many  blackened  repu- 
tations, had  recently  ended.  She  saw  his  op- 
portunities— saw  also  something  of  the  prob- 
able complications. 

And  she  had  a  strange  feeling  that  for  the 
moment  at  least  they  stood  outside  the  material 
world,  isolated,  free. 

Frankly  as  he  had  spoken,  she  replied: 
"But — what  about  Atkinson  Matthews?" 
In  that  question,  too,  there  were  gaps:  and 
even  as  she  had  bridged  them,  so  did  he. 

"I  won't  give  up — everything,"  he  answered 
grimly. 

She  perfectly  understood  \  he  had  sacrificed, 
was  sacrificing  enormously  to  the  girl  he  had 
married.  This  vow,  sworn  so  many  years  ago, 
he  would  keep,  even  should  the  keeping  of  it 
cause  a  break  with  Atkinson  Matthews,  and 
with  Elsie — but  it  was  easy  enough  to  divine 
what  Elsie's  attitude  would  be!  It  was  long 
since  she  had  made  the  slightest  effort  to  con- 
ceal the  fact  that  it  was  Atkinson  Matthews' 
prospective  heir  she  had  married,  rather  than 
Donald  Forsythe.  Times  without  number 
had  Nita  heard  her  talk  of  what  they  would 
do  when  the  old  man  died,  treating  Donald's 


THESE  TWAIN  149 

inheritance  of  his  fortune  as  a  matter  of  course, 
a  thing  absolutely  certain,  not  one  depending 
on  the  volition  of  an  individual  whom  increas- 
ing age  was  rendering  not  only  tyrannical  but 
whimsical.  And  should  a  rupture  come,  as 
come  it  well  might  if  these  projected  articles 
of  his  aroused  any  appreciable  amount  of  com- 
ment, then  the  menace  constantly  hovering  not 
far  from  that  ill-assorted  household  would  in- 
deed become  a  very  present  danger.  She 
wondered  whether  Donald  Forsythe  fully  rec- 
ognized this  peril  of  which  it  was  so  impossible 
to  speak.  Without  definite  knowledge,  partly 
through  intuition,  partly  through  chance 
glimpses  of  certain  significant  straws,  she  had 
come  to  believe  that  he  did  realize  something 
of  it  at  least. 

He  did  in  fact  realize  as  much  as  Nita  sup- 
posed, and  more ;  to  himself  he  summed  a  good 
deal  of  it  up  in  one  phrase:  You  couldn't 
count  on  Elsie.  She  had  a  way  of  twisting 
things,  of  finding  interpretations  of  which  no 
one  save  herself  had  ever  dreamed,  that  made 
her  a  series  of  surprises — and  the  surprises 
were  usually  unpleasant. 

Day  by  day  he  wondered  more  and  more  at 
the  blend  of  pity  and  passion  which  had  swept 


150     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

him  off  his  feet  and  into  wedlock.  That  pity 
had  played  an  important  part  in  it  all,  he 
knew.  Who,  indeed,  could  have  helped  feel- 
ing sorry  for  Elsie,  when  the  catastrophe  of 
her  father's  failure  came,  just  as  she  was  pre- 
paring for  her  long  anticipated  debut?  He 
had  chanced  to  be  in  East  Hampton,  where 
she  was  at  the  time,  and  he  remembered  her 
pale  little  face,  her  obvious  distress  over  the 
gossip.  She  had  seemed  so  forlorn,  so  utterly 
adrift!  And  she  had  clung  to  him,  who  had 
believed  his  lameness  must  taint  any  woman's 
feeling  for  him  with  the  pity  he  dreaded  and 
shrank  from.  He  knew  now  that  he  had  been 
merely  a  convenient  sympathizer  and  com- 
panion, not  even  the  object  of  one  of  her  many 
violent,  transient  infatuations.  And  he  did 
not  minimize  the  share  her  prettiness  had  had 
in  his  sudden,  tempestuous  wooing.  A  man 
too  fastidious  to  be  other  than  clean-lived,  he 
had  been  to  a  certain  extent  coerced  by  a  pas- 
sion of  which  he  had  since  become  a  trifle 
ashamed.  Thus  had  it  come  about  that  he 
had  taken  into  his  keeping  the  emotional,  irre- 
sponsible little  creature  who,  as  he  was  now 
aware,  regarded  him  as  a  sort  of  makeshift. 
And  he  had  believed  she  loved  him,  had  been 


THESE  TWAIN  151 

passionately  grateful  when  she  responded  to 
his  love-making  with  the  fervor  which  now 
puzzled  him  whenever  he  thought  of  it. 

He  got  out  of  the  car,  and  hurried  with  that 
quick  limping  stride  of  his  down  the  side  street 
toward  Park  Avenue,  where  stood  the  large 
apartment  house  in  which  Elsie  and  he  occu- 
pied a  very  few  feet  of  extremely  valuable 
space.  This  apartment  represented  one  of  his 
concessions.  He  would  have  preferred  more 
comfortable  quarters  in  a  less  fashionable 
neighborhood,  but  to  Elsie  the  necessity  for 
keeping  a  large  part  of  her  clothing  in  boxes 
under  her  bed  and  using  electric  light  at  mid- 
day— though  her  complaints  about  these  and 
other  inconveniences  were  almost  incessant — 
seemed  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  having  No.  —  Park  Avenue  on 
her  cards. 

He  let  himself  in,  hoping  against  hope  that 
she  had  gone  out.  He  was  very  tired. 

"Well,  Donald!    Where  have  you  been?" 

Elsie's  greeting  could  not  have  been  accu- 
rately described  as  cordial.  She  looked  charm- 
ingly pretty,  however,  in  her  dainty  negligee 
of  lace  and  ribbon,  with  a  rosebud  trimmed 
boudoir  cap  resting  lightly  on  her  curls. 


152     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

She  bore  the  same  resemblance  to  a  fluffy 
Persian  kitten  now  that  she  had  had  in  those 
bygone  days  when  she  told  Nita  Wynne  she 
intended  to  marry  a  millionaire.  A  tiny  white 
dog  with  pink  eyes  and  a  resigned  expression 
lay  upon  her  knee,  and  she  was  busily  engaged 
in  tying  a  large  pale  blue  satin  bow  on  his 
collar. 

"Something's  happened,  Elsie." 

"Oh,  has  it?  Well,  I'm  glad  to  know  you 
had  some  decent  reason  for  staying  out  all 
night!" 

A  mixture  of  curiosity  and  hostility  colored 
her  tone.  She  was  one  of  those  women  who 
believe  they  show  their  knowledge  of  the 
world  by  maintaining  an  attitude  of  suspicion 
toward  the  men  whose  names  they  have  taken, 
while  claiming  the  perfect  confidence  of  those 
same  men  in  and  for  themselves. 

An  instant  Donald  compressed  his  thin  lips. 
Then  he  said  quietly:  "Aunt  Cornelia  died 
yesterday  afternoon." 

"Oh!  How  perfectly  awful!  Why  didn't 
you  tell  me?  I'd  have  gone  right  up  there!" 

It  was  true;  but  well  he  knew  how  hyster- 
ically reluctant  would  have  been  the  going. 

She  went  on,  pulling  out  and  patting  the 


THESE  TWAIN  153 

loops  of  the  big  satin  bow;  "That  was  why 
they  telephoned  here  from  the  office,  then,  just 
before  you  called  me  up.  They  said  they 
didn't  know —  Where  were  you  ?" 

"At  Miss  Wynne's.  Delvain  wants  me  to 
get  her  to  do  some  work  for  the  magazine." 

The  explanation  was  necessary,  if  tears  and 
reproaches  were  to  be  avoided.  But  he  felt 
that  it  was  humiliating. 

"Oh!"  said  Elsie  again,  then  turned  her  at- 
tention to  the  resigned  Fluff.  "Was  'urn  a 
booful,  booful  'ittie  doggie,  wiv  'urn's  lovie  boo 
wibbon  on  'urn's  collar?"  She  paused  an  in- 
stant, still  busy  with  the  bow.  Suddenly  be- 
traying the  apprehension  she  knew  it  would 
not  be  "quite  nice"  to  express  clearly,  she 
added:  "Was  Nita  with  you?  Perhaps  Miss 
Sophia'll  live  with  her?  It  would  be  an  aw- 
fully good  arrangement  now  they're  both — " 

Every  syllable  grated  on  the  man's  weary 
nerves. 

"You  needn't  worry,"  he  said  with  the  iron- 
ical inflection  which  always  made  Elsie  feel 
herself  a  martyr.  "The  shock  was  too  much 
for  Aunt  Sophia.  A  blood  vessel  burst  in  her 
brain — it  killed  her." 

"Oh,  Donald,  how  can  you  speak  so  unfeel- 


154     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

ingly!"  Elsie  wailed.  "And  your  poor  dear 
aunts  were  so  devoted — "  She  hesitated  an 
instant.  "I  suppose  they  were  awfully  hard 
up?" 

He  read  her  thoughts  as  easily  as  though 
they  had  been  printed.  And  again  the  ironical 
inflection  curved  his  voice. 

"I  don't  think  they  had  very  .much  to  leave 
me,"  he  replied. 

Her  eyes  filled  at  once  with  the  ever-ready 
tears.  "Oh,  Donald,  how  can  you?  And 
they're  not  even  buried  yet!" 

Every  fiber  in  him  shrank  from  the  impend- 
ing scene.  Emotional  outbursts  were  a  joy 
to  Elsie ;  him  they  harassed  almost  beyond  en- 
durance. 

"Well,  in  the  meanwhile  I'll  go  and  take  a 
bath,"  he  said,  self-defensively  brutal,  and 
limped  quickly  out  of  the  room. 

It  was  the  fat  Irish  cook  who,  deciding  that 
in  all  probability  he  hadn't  had  any  breakfast, 
made  fresh  coffee  and  brought  it  to  him. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  ACQUIRED   VIRTUE 

"X/DU'VE  no  idea,  Nita  darling,  how 
JL  awfully  queer  Donald  is!"  Elsie  ex- 
claimed in  her  most  plaintive  tone.  "I 
thought  he'd  feel  just  terribly  about  his  aunts, 
and  he  didn't  care  a  bit,  not  one  single —  You 
know  he  used  to  go  and  see  them  all  the  time — 
at  least  he  said  he  did.  Of  course,  I  had  no 
way  of  knowing  where  he  really  went." 

"But  Elsie,  you've  no  reason  to  suppose  he 
was  lying  to  you!"  Nita  declared  impetuously; 
then  shut  her  lips  tight  and  busied  herself  with 
the  tea  things,  wishing  she  had  held  her  tongue. 
It  was  several  years  since  she  had  ceased  trying 
to  achieve  the  almost  impossible  feat  of  im- 
pressing Elsie  with  the  bad  taste  of  her  fre- 
quent criticisms  of  her  husband — criticisms 
which  Nita  knew  were  confided  to  many 
besides  herself — yet  not  offend  her. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  you're  not  married!"  the 
younger  woman  replied  conclusively,  using  her 


156     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

favorite  and  an  unanswerable  argument. 
"No  man  tells  his  wife  the  truth  more  than 
half  the  time!  Poor  mother  used  to  say  she 
thought  it  was  always  wise  for  women  to  have 
one  or  two  babies,  because  then  they  could  gen- 
erally get  anything  they  wanted  out  of  their 
husbands  by  threatening  to  divorce  them  and 
take  the  children.  Besides,  I  never  did  believe 
Donald  would  bother  so  terribly  much —  Of 
course  you  mustn't  repeat  this  to  any  one,  but 
I  was  awfully  shocked  at  the  way  he  talked 
right  after  they  died!" 

Nita  knew  that  Elsie  was  perfectly  sincere. 
Had  any  relative  of  her  own  expired  thus  sud- 
denly, she  would  have  had  hysterics  at  the  very 
least. 

"Perhaps  Mr.  Forsythe  felt  it  more  than  he 
showed,"  she  suggested  quietly. 

Elsie  shook  her  pretty  head,  on  which  the 
tiniest  of  hats  was  perched  at  the  most  extreme 
of  angles. 

"My  dear,  I  haven't  lived  with  Donald  for 
more  than  six  years  without  learning  all  about 
him.  He  simply  hasn't  any  heart!  Even 
when  my  darling  little  girl — "  she  sighed  and 
put  her  scrap  of  a  handkerchief  to  her  eyes  as 
she  always  did  when  she  mentioned  the  child 


THE  ACQUIRED  VIRTUE     157 

that,  to  her  great  relief,  had  never  breathed — 
"even  then  he  was  awfully  hard  and—  Oh, 
Fluffy  darling,  what  are  you  doing?" 

Fluff,  disregarded  for  a  moment,  was  chew- 
ing at  the  detested  blue  bow  with  all  the  en- 
ergy of  which  his  diminutive  jaws  were  ca- 
pable. Elsie  picked  him  up,  twisted  the  bow 
back  into  place,  told  him  he  was  "a  naughty, 
naughty  ittie  doggie,"  and  went  on: 

"Donald's  got  a  horribly  moody  disposition, 
and  he  doesn't  appreciate  anything  you  do  for 
him.  Now  some  men — " 

Nita  recognized  the  symptoms.  Elsie,  she 
knew,  had  something  to  tell  her,  and  she 
wanted  yet  half  disliked  to  hear  the  confidence. 

"Two  lumps — that's  right,  isn't  it?"  she 
asked,  pouring  out  the  tea.  "I'm  so  glad  I 
happened  to  order  toasted  muffins  to-day — I 
know  you  like  them."  . 

And  she  too  was  perfectly  sincere.  For  if 
their  friendship  had  been  largely  a  matter  of 
claims,  conscious  and  unconscious,  on  Elsie's 
part,  and  of  solicitude  and  guardianship  on  her 
own,  there  had  been  a  time  when  she  lay  ill 
with  diphtheria,  and  Elsie  haunted  the  house, 
keeping  filled  with  flowers  the  room  from 
which  doctors  and  nurses  barred  her.  Nita 


158     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

had  never  forgotten  that  episode  and  the  testi- 
mony it  gave  of  Elsie's  affection  and  generos- 
ity. She  did  not  know  that  the  subsequent 
florist's  bill  had  surprised  and  dismayed  Don- 
ald Forsythe ;  it  is  easy  to  be  lavish  with  other 
people's  money. 

"It's  terribly  hard  on  me,  you  know,"  Elsie 
continued,  pouting  her  soft  red  lips,  "but  he 
never  thinks  of  that.  If  I  do  say  it  myself, 
I've  got  an  awfully  affectionate  nature,  but  all 
the  same —  Why,  he  won't  so  much  as  take 
the  trouble  to  be  nice  to  Uncle  Atkinson! 
Uncle  was  awfully  angry  because  Donald 
wouldn't  promise  to  vote  for — for  Johnson  or 
Hooligan  or  whatever  the  man's  name  was — 
you  know,  the  one  that  wanted  to  be  mayor  or 
governor  or  something.  I  told  him  he  ought 
to  promise  so  as  to  please  Uncle — he  wouldn't 
have  to  do  it,  of  course.  But  that's  Donald  all 
over!" 

It  certainly  was;  for  loyalty  to  his  given 
word  was  Donald  Forsythe's  pet  hobby — if 
such  a  thing  can  be  called  a  hobby.  Long  ago 
Nita  had  recognized  this  fact,  though  it  had  not 
made  any  particular  impression  upon  her. 
Now  Elsie's  complaint  stamped  it  on  her 
mind. 


THE  ACQUIRED  VIRTUE     159 

But  she  only  passed  the  muffins  for  the 
third  time,  and  said:  "Well,  then,  why  not 
take  him  as  he  is  and  make  the  best  of  it?  You 
know  he's  really  not  at  all  a  bad  sort  of  a  hus- 
band." 

"Oh,  no — not  according  to  our  American 
standards!  He  doesn't  get  drunk,  he  doesn't 
beat  me,  and  as  far  as  I  know,  he  doesn't  make 
love  to  other  women.  It's  those  delicate  little 
attentions,  the — the  soul  sympathy,  you  know, 
foreign  men — " 

Nita  gave  her  a  quick,  penetrating  look. 
"Soul  sympathy."  That  was  a  new  idea  for 
Elsie.  Who  had  put  it  into  her  head? 

"Where  did  you  learn  so  much  about 
foreign  men?"  she  asked,  a  careless  tone  soft- 
ening her  clear-cut  utterance. 

Elsie  blushed,  and  stooped  to  feed  Fluff 
with  bits  of  muffin.  Still  bending  down,  she 
answered : 

"Well,  I  was  talking  to  Count  Czerniatow- 
ski  the  other  night" — 

It  was  coming,  the  expected  confidence! 

"He's  awfully  clever  and  terribly  subtle,  you 
know,  and  he  said  he  wondered  at  the  way  we 
American  women  endured  our  husbands'  ne- 
glect of  us." 


160     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Count  Czerniatowski?  Isn't  he  the  draw- 
ing-room violinist?" 

"Yes.  I  met  him  at  Nell  Dane's  the  other 
night.  It  was  one  of  her  crushes,  or  she 
wouldn't  have  asked  me"  Elsie  spoke  petu- 
lantly. ffl  can't  afford  to  entertain  her." 

Nita  made  no  reply.  This  particular  griev- 
ance was  an  old,  old  story. 

"The  Count  played  some  things,"  Elsie 
went  on.  "He  only  did  it  to  oblige  her.  You 
know  he  won't  appear  in  public.  He  says  the 
bourgeois  atmosphere  of  an  American  audi- 
ence is  alien  to  his  art." 

"Does  he  play  well?"  Nita  inquired,  with  an 
irony  her  companion  failed  to  perceive. 

"Divinely!  And  he's  so  terribly  handsome 
— tall  and  dark  and  pale,  you  know,  with  the 
loveliest  eyes!  When  he  looks  at  you,  you 
feel  he's  penetrating  awfully  far —  He  said 
he  knew  right  away  I  wasn't  happy." 

"Don't  you  think  that  was  rather — imperti- 
nent? Do  have  some  more  muffin!" 

"Oh,  he  says  the  artist  soul  can't  be  bound 
by  the  social  limbo — he's  awfully  eloquent,  you 
know,  and  terribly  melancholy.  He  wants  to 
see  me  again.  He  says  he  can't  be  sure  about 
the  color  of  my  aura  until  he  views  me  in  my 


THE  ACQUIRED  VIRTUE     161 

own  home  and  gets  its  psychic  vibrations. 
He's  awfully  interested  in  my  aura — it's  ter- 
ribly touching,  you  know!"  She  sighed,  and 
took  another  muffin. 

Nita  suppressed  a  smile.  As  she  had  sus- 
pected, Elsie  was  in  the  opening  stages  of  one 
of  those  short-lived  infatuations  which  were 
to  her  as  a  sort  of  emotional  debauch.  This 
Count,  the  authenticity  of  whose  title  Nita 
thought  doubtful,  had  become  a  social  semi- 
fad.  Probably  he  was  seeking  more  profitable 
game  than  Elsie.  She  devoutly  hoped  he  was, 
and  she  knew  Elsie  took  seriously  every  idle 
compliment  paid  her,  believing  that  if  a  man 
flattered  her  he  must  be  in  love  with  her. 

While  Elsie  chatted  on,  her  one  subject  the 
Count  and  his  perfections,  Nita  was  making 
up  her  mind  to  call  on  her  stepmother,  from 
whom  she  would  hear  all  the  latest  gossip  about 
the  melancholy  violinist  with  the  lovely  eyes 
and  the  touching  interest  in  Elsie's  aura. 
Since  she  had  recovered  from  her  chagrin  at 
finding  herself  indebted  to  Mrs.  Wynne's 
efforts  on  her  behalf,  they  had  been  on  surpris- 
ingly pleasant  terms ;  Nita,  generous  and  com- 
punctious, giving  her  perhaps  more  credit  for 
her  kindliness  than  she  altogether  deserved. 


162     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Some  day,"  Elsie  was  saying,  "he's  going 
to  play  a  lot  of  his  own  compositions  for  me. 
He  says  my  nature  is  strangely  responsive. 
And  he  says  I  ought  to  change  my  name ;  that 
Elsie's  bad  for  me,  and  I  ought  to  call  myself 
Walburga  or  Euphrosyne,  he  isn't  quite  sure 
which."  She  twisted  in  her  chair,  poking  at 
the  cushions  among  which  she  presently 
snuggled.  She  loved  softness  and  ease  and 
warmth. 

Nita  bit  back  the  retort  hovering  on  her  lips. 
Her  influence  over  Elsie,  though  perhaps  not 
very  great,  was  one  of  that  irresponsible  little 
person's  principal  safeguards.  So  long  as 
Elsie  talked  openly  to  her —  Impatient  as  she 
was,  she  controlled  herself  to  endure  another 
half-hour's  rhapsodies,  and  was  at  last  re- 
warded by  a  change  of  subject. 

"Do  come  to  dinner  Thursday  night,  won't 
you?"  Elsie  begged.  "I've  got  to  have  Ru- 
dolph and  Geraldine,  and  I  can't  stand — I've 
asked  Dwight  Brainerd — he  goes  everywhere 
— and  I  want  another  woman.  Geraldine's 
so  awfully  superior  since  they  got  a  motor! 
You  know  Rudolph's  coining  money,  and  it's 
making  her  just  unbearable." 

Elsie's  jealousy  of  her  sister  was  another  old 


THE  ACQUIRED  VIRTUE     163 

story.  She  was  disappointed  and  sore  over 
her  own  marriage — a  mere  makeshift  instead 
of  the  brilliant  match  to  which  she  had  confi- 
dently aspired.  And  in  some  obscure  manner 
she  distorted  her  failure  into  a  grievance 
against  Geraldine,  the  once  despised  and 
now  envied.  Her  single,  cherished  conso- 
lation was  the  thought  of  Atkinson  Mat- 
thews. 

Nita  was  tempted  to  plead  a  previous  en- 
gagement ;  she  liked  Dwight  Brainerd,  but  she 
did  not  care  about  meeting  either  Drake  or 
Geraldine.  It  was  only  her  desire  to  keep  in 
close  touch  with  Elsie  throughout  this  period 
of  the  Count's  ascendancy  which  caused  her  to 
accept  the  invitation. 

"You  know,  I'm  not  at  all  sure  I  ought  to 
ask  Dr.  Brainerd,"  Elsie  went  on  confiden- 
tially. "It  doesn't  seem  kind —  You  know 
he  lets  people  talk  about  his  wanting  to  marry 
Helen  Carstairs,  but  if  you  could  have  seen 
the  way  he  looked  at  me  the  other  night!  I 
was  wearing  some  pink  roses,  and  he  said  they 
just  suited  me!  It's  perfectly  terrible  how 
men —  I  don't  want  them  to  be  miserable,  but 
what  can  I  do?" 

Nita  smiled,  and  for  the  several  hundredth 


164     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

time  wondered  at  Elsie's  ability  to  believe  any- 
thing that  pleased  her. 

It  was  not  until  her  guest  was  fastening  her 
voluminous  and  expensive  furs  that  she  re- 
membered the  appointment  made  with  Donald 
a  week  ago,  over  the  telephone.  He  was  to 
stop  in  and  see  her  after  office  hours ;  he  might 
appear  at  any  moment,  and  she  had  forgotten 
to  tell  Elsie  he  was  coming.  She  knew  how 
close  a  watch  that  pretty  little  person  kept  on 
her  husband's  every  movement,  in  accordance 
with  her  theory  that  no  man  could  be  trusted— 
except,  of  course,  the  temporary  object  of  her 
adoration.  But  it  was  too  late  now  to  speak 
about  the  matter,  and  anyway,  it  was  a  mere 
business  arrangement.  Only  for  his  sake  she 
was  glad  that  there  was  a  good  ten  minutes' 
interval  between  Elsie's  departure  and  his  ar- 
rival. 

He  dropped  into  the  comfortable  chair  she 
indicated  with  an  unconscious  little  "Ah!"  of 
satisfaction  that  betrayed  his  fatigue.  Dur- 
ing the  month  which  had  elapsed  since  they 
stood  together  in  the  gray  November  dawn 
they  had  scarcely  exchanged  a  word.  Now 
she  noticed  that  the  hollows  at  his  temples  were 
deeper  than  usual,  the  shadows  under  his  eyes 


THE  ACQUIRED  VIRTUE     165 

broader  and  darker;  she  guessed  that  he  had 
been  doing  double  work,  and  was  showing  the 
effects.  The  North  Eastern,  the  Trans-Con- 
tinental Trust,  all  that  complicated  financial 
web  in  whose  center  sat  John  Korner,  while 
subsidiary  spiders  helped  to  spin  it  out  and 
over  and  around — the  mere  thought  of  tracing 
its  intricacies  was  enough  to  make  one  dizzy! 
She  said  nothing,  but  quietly  substituted 
strong  bouillon  for  the  coffee  she  had  intended 
to  give  him. 

"Elsie  left  only  a  few  minutes  ago,"  she  re- 
marked tentatively.  "She  was  telling  me 
about  Nell  Dane's  musicale." 

"You  didn't  go,  did  you?" 

"No;  I  had  Mary  Nelson  and  two  or  three 
other  people  in  to  dinner.  I'm  a  bit  sorry  not 
to  have  heard  that  Count  Czerniatowski  play, 
though.  Is  he  any  good?" 

"Oh,  he  plays  fairly  well — does  the  fiery,  im- 
passioned stuff  and  reels  back  exhausted  when 
it's  over.  Whereupon  the  assembled  multi- 
tude thrills  and  reaches  for  handkerchiefs." 

Nita's  eyes  twinkled;  he  had  told  her  all  she 
wanted  to  know. 

Borne  on  the  strong  northwest  wind  came 
faint  yet  distinct  the  sound  of  the  tower  clock, 


166     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

striking  six.  He  listened,  counting  the 
strokes. 

"It's  later  than  I  thought.  Now  about 
those  articles.  We  want  a  series  on  Furnish- 
ing the  City  Flat.  Will  you  do  them  for  us?" 

Nita  demurred.  "You  know  I've  never 
written  anything." 

"What  difference  does  that  make?  Your 
name's  well  known,  you're  an  expert  in  your 
own  line,  and  we've  a  first-class  photographer. 
We  want  some  common  sense  in  our  articles — 
to  balance  the  fiction.  Think,  only  think,  I  do 
beseech  you,  of  the  number  of  your  fellow  mor- 
tals whom  you  may  save  from  being  engulfed 
in  cosy  corners  and  having  their  eyesight  de- 
stroyed by  'artistic'  lamp  shades!" 

Nita's  smile  brightened  her  face  as  with  sun- 
shine. "On  purely  humanitarian  grounds, 
then—" 

"Oh,  certainly!  They're  the  only  ones  with 
which  the  Colonial  has  any  concern  nowadays. 
We're  all  for  home  and  uplift  and  sweet,  rosy 
optimism.  Everything  for  the  best  in  the  best 
of  worlds — that's  the  way  to  build  up  your  sub- 
scription list.  It's  really  very  amusing."  He 
stretched  out  his  long  legs,  and  leaning  back  in 
the  big  chair,  regarded  her  quizzically. 


THE  ACQUIRED  VIRTUE     167 

"I  wish  to  goodness  that  man  had  never 
bought  the  Colonial!"  she  exclaimed  impul- 
sively. "It's  a  miserable  shame — " 

She  checked  herself,  as  she  was  so  often 
obliged  to  do,  and  turned  down  the  spirit  lamp 
with  such  vigor  that  she  extinguished  the  flame 
and  had  to  relight  it. 

"Why  scorn  an  energetic — and  profitable — 
policy  of  sweetness  and  uplift?  I  assure  you 
the  Colonial's  at  least  three  times  as  popular 
as  it  used  to  be!" 

"I'm  beginning  to  be  sorry — " 

Again  she  checked  herself,  flushing  and 
breaking  the  sentence  sharply.  She  had  no 
right  .  .  . 

His  left  shoulder  jerked.  "Your  judg- 
ment's a  bit  harsh,  isn't  it?" 

"And  yours?" 

"Mine?  Oh,  'madame,  ce  n'est  que  pour 
riref  There  are  two  sides  to  everything, 
tragic  and  comic.  I  choose  to  look  at  the 
comic  one,  that's  all.  And  then  I— well,  I'm 
part  of  the  comic  side  myself." 

"Or  the  tragic." 

No  sooner  had  the  words  passed  her  lips 
than  she  would  have  given  a  great  deal  for  the 
power  to  recall  them. 


168     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

A  shadow  went  across  his  face,  momentarily 
obliterating  its  smiling  irony. 

"Perhaps!  Only — that's  the  one  I  won't 
look  at.  It's  so  abominably  easy  to  see  it  and 
feel  sorry  for  yourself!  Which  to  my  mind 
isn't  exactly — estimable.  I'd  rather  laugh  at 
it  all.  That  way  leads  to  tolerance — some- 
times— even  if  one  only  limps  along  it." 

"I  don't  think  your  way  of  laughing  is  ex- 
actly what  I'd  call  tolerant!" 

"Very  likely  it  isn't;  that's  an  acquired 
virtue — otherwise  it's  not  a  virtue  at  all." 

"We're  usually  told  it  is." 

"Oh,  the  conventional  moralizing!  Pure 
poppycock,  most  of  it.  I'll  wager  anything 
you  started  out  yourself  with  all  sorts  of  cast- 
iron  rules  of  conduct;  most  people — especially 
most  women — do  who  have  any  strength  of 
character  worth  mentioning.  Own  up  now; 
didn't  you  see  everything  and  everybody  as  all 
white  or  all  black?" 

His  glance  was  half  quizzical,  half  laughing ; 
but  the  laughter  was  very  gentle. 

"Yes,  I  did,"  she  answered  honestly. 

"And  now?  Think  of  some  of  the  people 
and  things  jrou  condemned  ten  years  ago,  when 
I  first  knew  you." 


THE  ACQUIRED  VIRTUE     169 

Up  into  Nita's  conscious  mind  leaped  words 
she  herself  had  spoken  in  her  untrained  and  in- 
experienced youth:  "She  smokes  and  makes 
up  ...  nice  women  don't  do  such  things." 
How  positive  she  had  been — then!  And  to- 
day— why,  among  her  best,  most  valued  friends 
were  women  who  did  both. 

She  nodded,  a  little  ruefully.  "I  felt  sure 
of  my  ability  and  my  right  to  judge — ten  years 
ago." 

"Quite  so!  You're  learning,  you  see — gar- 
nering experience.  And  experience  plus  the 
intelligence  and  imagination  that  together 
with  good  will  make  up  understanding,  equals 
tolerance — the  true  and  genuine  kind." 

"But  if  I'd  started  with  it,  had  more  for- 
bearance, more  charity  to  begin  with — "  she 
protested.  She  was  thinking  of  her  step- 
mother. 

"You  might  have  escaped  some  pretty  hard 
knocks,  but  it  would  have  been  because  you 
didn't  stand  up  and  take  them.  Tolerance 
that  isn't  learned,  that  doesn't  develop  from 
understanding,  is  poor,  sloppy,  slushy  sort  of 
stuff — mere  laziness,  half  the  time,  or  lack  of 
moral  backbone.  It's  almost  as  bad  as  being 
easy  on  yourself  and  hard  on  other  people." 


170     JHE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Even  on  those  who  like  the  new  Colonial?" 

He  chuckled.  "That's  one  on  me,  all  right! 
Oh,  well,  perhaps  when  the  millenium  comes, 
the  best  work  will  be  the  most  popular.  But 
at  present — " 

His  shrug  dismissed  the  subject.  Return- 
ing to  the  question  of  the  articles,  they  settled 
certain  necessary  details.  Then  he  took  his 
leave. 

After  he  had  gone,  Nita  went  into  her  pretty, 
quaintly  furnished  bedroom  to  dress  for  a  din- 
ner at  the  Cavanaghs'.  While  her  hands 
moved  quickly  and  skillfully  among  the  wavy 
masses  of  her  light-brown  hair,  her  thoughts 
glided  back  over  the  talk  of  the  afternoon. 
And  it  was  on  Elsie's  words  and  tones  that 
they  lingered,  rather  than  on  Donald  For- 
sythe's ;  she  was  directing  and  controlling  them, 
actually,  but  not  yet  consciously. 


CHAPTER  XII 

MRS.   FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS 

THURSDAY  night  came,  clear  and  cold. 
There  had  been  a  heavy  storm  during 
the  afternoon — first  snow,  then  sleet — and 
now  the  trees  and  bushes  of  Gramercy  Park 
were  covered  with  a  thin,  glistening  coat  of  ice. 
Overhead,  a  moon  nearly  at  the  full  looked 
down  with  serene  contempt  at  the  winking  arc 
lights,  and  irradiated  the  frost-enveloped  park, 
turning  it  into  a  place  of  exquisite,  shimmering 
beauty.  Each  leafless  branch,  each  tiny  twig 
had  its  place  in  the  sparkling  crystal  network 
that  made  the  little  enclosure  a  veritable  Land 
of  Faerie.  Even  the  forbidding  iron  railing 
had  the  Ice  King  done  his  very  best  to  trans- 
form into  silver  and  spun  glass:  but  man's 
handiwork  is  far  less  susceptible  to  his  magic 
touch  than  is  Nature's. 

Nita  lowered  the  window  of  her  taxi  as  they 
skirted  the  park,  breathing  in  the  glittering, 
champagnelike  air  with  that  exceptional  keen- 
ness of  enjoyment  which  was  characteristic  of 


172     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

her.  She  reveled  in  the  beauty  that  was  one 
result  of  the  storm,  and  entirely  forgot  how 
the  pitiless,  sleet-laden  wind  had  impeded  and 
chilled  and  buffeted  her  that  afternoon.  Not 
until  the  cab  had  jolted  over  the  Twenty-third 
Street  car  tracks  did  she  lean  back  and  begin 
to  consider  the  ordeal — no,  ordeal  was  too 
strong  a  word — the  discomfort  which  was  be- 
fore her.  They  certainly  were  not  pleasant, 
these  occasional  meetings  with  Rudolph  Drake 
and  his  wife!  He  would  probably  be  as- 
signed to  her,  while  Mr.  Forsythe  struggled 
with  Geraldine ;  talk  about  misfits !  And  what 
a  pity  it  was  that  Elsie  and  Geraldine  insisted 
on  giving  each  other  dinner  for  dinner.  Why 
should  they  consider  it  necessary  to  eat  to- 
gether just  so  many  times  a  year,  because  they 
chanced  to  be  related?  There  was  neither 
affection,  nor  sympathy,  nor  even  liking  be- 
tween them.  Phoebe  had  married  an  English- 
man and  gone  abroad  to  live,  or  no  doubt  she 
would  have  thought  it  her  duty  to  dine  her  sis- 
ters, however  little  she  might  care  for  them. 

The  phrase  drew  her  wandering  thoughts  to 
Elsie's  latest — well,  "crush" — the  schoolgirl 
slang  best  expressed  it.  She  remembered  the 
riding  master  with  whom  Elsie  had  talked  of 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    173 

eloping  until  she  herself  had  laughed  her  out 
of  the  notion,  and  wondered  whether  this  so- 
called  Austrian  Count  were  not  a  person  of 
much  the  same  caliber.  Only  it  was  less  easy 
to  manage  Elsie  nowadays!  And  she  was  as 
capable  as  ever  of  compromising  herself.  Had 
she  but  married  the  desired  millionaire,  she 
would  have  been  safe.  With  sufficient  money 
to  take  the  social  position  she  regarded  as  her 
right,  she  would  have  eschewed  risking  it, 
dreaded  a  newspaper  scandal.  Discontent 
fostered  her  emotional  debauches,  and  if  ever 
there  should  come  a  man  who  made  serious  love 
to  her,  who  considered  the  game  worth  the 
candle — !  Nita  looked  straight  at  the  facts  as 
she  knew  them,  blinking  nothing,  yet  aware 
that  behind  those  she  could  see  and  understand 
there  were  others,  strange,  repellent. 

She  was  fond  of  Elsie;  she  believed  that 
even  if  "the  child"  did  enjoy  emotional  de- 
bauches, it  was  always  with  the  conviction  that 
the  latest  was  the  ultimate  great  passion. 

The  streets  were  in  the  wretched  state  which 
is  their  normal  condition  after  a  snowstorm; 
this  one,  like  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred, 
had  taken  the  Street  Cleaning  Department  by 
surprise.  The  taxi  could  progress  but  slowly, 


174     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

and  Nita  had  time  to  do  a  good  deal  of  think- 
ing before  she  reached  the  apartment  house  on 
Park  Avenue.  Dwight  Brainerd,  a  bachelor 
and  successful  physician,  had  just  arrived: 
Nita  was  a  minute  or  two  late,  and  there  was 
as  yet  no  sign  of  the  Drakes. 

Elsie  rushed  to  greet  her  friend. 

"Oh,  Nita  dear,"  she  wailed,  "I  do  have  the 
most  awful  luck !  Uncle  Atkinson  telephoned 
a  little  while  ago  and  asked  if  he  might  come 
up  for  dinner!  Isn't  it  dreadful?  After  I'd 
got  my  table  all  arranged  and — and  every- 
thing!" 

Nita  was  used  to  Elsie's  habit  of  making  a 
tragedy  out  of  every  morsel  of  inconvenience. 
But  she  knew  from  experience  how  the  arrival 
of  an  extra  guest  may  ruin  the  best-laid  plans ; 
and  Elsie's  were  never  any  too  well  devised. 

"Shall  I  do  the  table  over  for  you?"  she 
asked  quickly.  "I'm  sure  I  can  make  it  look 
all  right.  And  if  anything's  likely  to  give 
out,  I  can — " 

Elsie  interrupted  her.  "I've  just  thought! 
There  is  something — oh,  Nita  dear,  do  tell 
Uncle  you  think  I  don't  look  a  bit  well,  and  it's 
an  awful  pity  I  haven't  a  motor  so  I'd  get  out 
of  doors  more — it  would  do  me  such  lots  of 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    175 

good!  He  might  take  the  hint  from  you — 
you've  always  been  a  favorite  of  his,  you 
know!" 

Nita  laughed.  She  had  done  a  good  many 
things  for  Elsie,  but  this  particular  request  she 
had  not  the  faintest  intention  of  fulfilling. 
Apart  from  other  considerations,  she  knew  At- 
kinson Matthews  far  too  well.  "One  look  at 
you,  Puss,  and  he'd  think  me  an  unmitigated — 
romancer.  You're  the  very  picture  of  health." 

"Oh,  but  I'm  really  not  all  right,  you  know, 
and  if — "  Donald  was  coming  toward  them, 
and  having  some  idea  how  he  would  regard  her 
little  scheme,  she  snapped  the  sentence  off 
short.  Pausing  an  instant  to  survey  Nita's 
exquisite  costume  of  rose-pink  satin,  tulle,  and 
silver — Miss  Wynne,  it  must  be  admitted,  had 
an  entirely  feminine  and  perverse  desire  to  look 
her  best  whenever  she  encountered  her  former 
lover  and  his  wife — she  went  on: 

"Geraldine's  sure  to  be  late.  She  thinks  it's 
so  awfully — to  be  late  and  keep  every  one  wait- 
ing. Next  time  I  go  to  dinner  with  her,  I 
mean  to  be  a  good  three  quarters  of  an  hour — 
Isn't  that  a  new  gown,  Nita?" 

The  question  she  had  tried  not  to  ask  had 
slipped  out  in  spite  of  her. 


176     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Nita  smiled.  "Yes;  just  as  new  as  new  can 
be." 

"How  awfully  lucky  you  are!"  sighed  Elsie 
lugubriously.  "I  wish  Z  had  a  lot  of  money  of 
my  own.  It  must  be  awfully  nice  to  be  able  to 
do  just  as  you  please!" 

Remembering  the  long  day  she  had  spent 
working  over  estimates,  arguing  with  an  obsti- 
nate husband  and  a  foolish  wife,  each  of  whom 
wanted  the  apartment  they  had  recently  rented 
decorated  with  a  different  kind  of  sight- 
destroying  horror,  trying  to  persuade  a  su- 
percilious architect  not  to  put  a  wardrobe  in 
the  one  place  where  there  was  decent  light  for 
a  dressing  table,  correcting  other  people's 
blunders  and  fighting  the  storm,  Nita's  eyes 
twinkled  with  mirth  at  that  last  remark.  And 
happening  to  catch  Donald  Forsythe's  glance, 
she  saw  that  he  understood,  understood  not 
only  the  irony  but  also  the  pitiableness  of 
Elsie's  wail. 

"I  can't  tell  you  how  terribly  I  envy  you!" 
that  pretty  little  person  went  on:  her  percep- 
tions were  far  from  keen.  "If  it  wasn't  for 
my  p'ecious  ittie  doggie-dog,  I  don't  know 
what  I'd  do — tiss  muvver,  'tweetness!"  She 
hugged  Fluff  too  tight,  and  he  yapped  a  pro- 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    177 

test,  whereat  she  petulantly  threw  him  on  the 
floor.  "You  have  such  lots  of  fun!" 

Elsie  vibrated  between  envy  and  scorn  of 
Nita's  self-supporting,  spinster  independence, 
the  envy  being  usually  expressed  in  her  own 
husband's  presence.  Now,  as  she  again  picked 
up  and  caressed  the  resigned  Fluff,  she  looked 
sidewise  at  him  to  see  what  effect  her  remark 
had  had ;  she  had  never  become  accustomed  to 
his  impassivity,  hoping  always  to  succeed  in 
making  him  wince. 

"Miss  Wynne  gets  more  fun  and  excitement 
out  of  just  living  than  any  one  I  ever  knew," 
Forsythe  said.  "Aren't  you  ever  bored?"  he 
added,  turning  to  Nita. 

As  lightly  as  he  had  asked  the  question,  she 
answered  it. 

"No,  I  don't  believe  I  ever  am!  I  get 
angry  and  cross  and  even  blue  sometimes,  but 
bored — never.  People  are  so  entertaining!  I 
had  to  tackle  a  choice  pair  to-day;  the  man 
wanted  peacocks  on  the  walls  of  a  room  about 
eight  by  ten,  and  the  woman  thought  large  red 
and  purple  chrysanthemums  would  be  'awfully 
stylish'!" 

The  instant  she  had  spoken  she  remembered 
with  dismay  Elsie's  constant  use  of  the  ad- 


178     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

verb.  But  that  charming  little  person,  like 
the  majority  of  us,  was  quite  unconscious  of 
her  own  tricks  of  speech.  So  she  joined  in  the 
laugh  which  followed  Nita's  description, 
though  why  it  should  be  thought  funny  she 
hadn't  the  least  idea.  Big  chrysanthemums 
were  "awfully  stunning!"  And  then  Geral- 
dine  appeared  in  the  doorway,  with  Rudolph 
Drake's  handsome  head  and  broad  shoulders 
showing  behind  her. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I'm  so  sorry  we're  late,"  she 
said  in  a  rather  indifferent  tone.  "The  streets 
are  in  such  a  wretched  condition  our 
motor  could  scarcely  get  through  them.  We 
wouldn't  b'e  here  yet,  if  Williams  wasn't  such 
a  competent  chauffeur." 

"I  didn't  expect  you  for  at  least  half  an 
hour.  You  know  you're  always  late,  no  mat- 
ter what  the  weather's  like,"  replied  Elsie 
tartly.  Those  allusions  to  the  motor  and  the 
chauffeur  had  rubbed  the  Persian  kitten's  fur 
the  wrong  way. 

"It  is  so  difficult  to  find  time  for  all  the 
things  one  has  to  do!"  Geraldine  replied  per- 
functorily, and  turned  to  shake  hands  with 
Forsythe,  leaving  Elsie  to  welcome  Drake 
with  what  cordiality  she  could  muster. 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    179 

But  he  was  quite  indifferent  to  the  quality 
of  her  greeting.  During  the  moment  Geral- 
dine  paused  in  the  doorway  he  had  caught 
sight  of  Nita  Wynne,  and  from  that  instant 
the  consciousness  of  her  presence  absorbed  him 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  else.  The  girl  who  had 
lost  something  of  her  glamour  when  he  believed 
her  ready  to  be  his,  had  regained  it  all — and 
more — once  he  realized  that  she  had  definitely 
drawn  herself  out  of  his  reach.  Unattainable, 
she  had  never  ceased  to  be  wonderful  and  de- 
sirable, an  ideal  to  be  worshiped  and  exalted. 
He  believed  her  perfect,  and  whenever  con- 
science pricked  him,  he  would  say  to  himself 
that  if  Nita  had  married  him,  he  would  have 
been  another  and  a  very  different  man.  It 
would  have  been  worth  while  then,  to  make  an 
effort,  with  her  love  and  pride  for  a  reward! 
But  Geraldine — well,  Geraldine  was  his 
wedded  mistress;  that  was  the  long  and  the 
short  of  it. 

In  spite  of  Elsie's  troubled  anticipations,  it 
was  Atkinson  Matthews  who  was  the  last  to 
arrive;  but  his  reception  was  of  the  warmest, 
nevertheless. 

"Oh,  Uncle  Atkinson,  I'm  so  awfully  glad 
to  see  you!"  she  cried  with  much  enthusiasm. 


180     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"It  was  just  too  terribly  sweet  of  you  to  come 
out  in  this  awful  weather !" 

"I  hope  I  didn't—" 

"Oh,  you  didn't  put  me  out  a  bit — not  one 
single  solitary  bit!  We're  always  so  awfully 
glad  to  have  you,  we  wouldn't  care  how  much 
trouble  you  made  us !" 

Which  was  not  the  most  tactful  of  remarks. 

Atkinson  Matthews  smiled.  Elsie  had 
overdone  it;  she  so  often  overdid  it! 

Immediately  after  his  coming,  they  went  in 
to  dinner,  Elsie  uncomfortably  aware  that 
Geraldine's  critical  eyes  would  note  every  de- 
ficiency. In  lighting  the  candles,  the  maid  had 
carelessly  scorched  the  fringe  of  one  shade; 
Geraldine  instantly  saw  it,  looked  at  the  burned 
place  long  enough  to  call  every  one's  atten- 
tion to  it,  and  let  her  gaze  wander  away  to  her 
husband.  Elsie  flushed;  she  was  a  poor 
housekeeper,  and  though  too  lazy  to  remedy 
her  shortcomings,  found  their  results  irritat- 
ing. 

"What  a  dreadfully  dull  affair  that  last 
musicale  of  Nell  Dane's  was!  Weren't  you 
bored  to  death,  Elsie?"  remarked  Geraldine,  as 
she  unfolded  her  napkin.  "You  were  wise, 
Miss  Wynne,  not  to  go." 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    181 

ffl  enjoyed  it  very  much!"  Elsie  exclaimed. 
The  Persian  kitten  had  claws,  and  thought  she 
saw  a  chance  to  use  them.  "But  of  course 
one  has  to  be  really  musical  in  order  to  appreci- 
ate Count  Czerniatowski's  playing!" 

"Yes;  so  he  told  me."  Donald's  mockery 
was  entirely  lost  on  two  out  of  the  three  women. 

"Surely,  you  don't  think  him  an  artist!" 
Geraldine,  like  her  sister,  did  not  know 
Chopin's  Marche  Funebre  from  the  Trovatore 
Miserere,  but  she  could  speak  about  matters  of 
which  she  was  ignorant  with  far  more  assur- 
ance than  Elsie  was  ever  able  to  acquire. 

Dwight  Brainerd  good-naturedly  inter- 
posed. "I  suppose  that's  one  of  the  questions 
people  will  quarrel  over  until  Doomsday. 
Not  Czer — what's-his-name's  playing,  but 
whether  some  particular  type  of  performance 
is  or  is  not  art." 

Understanding  his  purpose,  Nita  came 
promptly  to  his  assistance.  But  knowing 
more  than  he  did  of  the  underlying  complica- 
tions, she  dexterously  twisted  the  subject. 

"Just  think,  though,  how  much  less  inter- 
esting life  would  be  if  even  professional  critics 
agreed !  I  was  talking  to  Margaret  Lane  yes- 
terday about  her  new  book.  She  says  most 


182     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

of  the  reviewers  like  it,  but  each  has  a  different 
'why/  " 

"Well,  no  two  people  ever  read  the  same 
book  or  see  the  same  picture,"  put  in  Forsythe. 
"That  sounds  like  a  bull,  doesn't  it!  But  you 
know  what  I  mean." 

Elsie  giggled.  She  had  a  fixed  idea  that 
giggling  and  gayety  were  synonymous. 

"Or  look  at  any  matter  from  the  same-  point 
of  view,"  added  Drake,  feeling  that  he  ought 
to  say  something.  "And  speaking  of  points 
of  view,  did  I  tell  you  I  met  Carstairs  of  the 
Trans-Continental  Trust  the  other  day?" 

He  had  turned  to  Forsythe,  speaking  with 
that  change  of  tone,  a  change  so  slight  as  to 
be  almost  imperceptible,  which  always  came 
when  he  addressed  his  brother-in-law.  Be- 
tween the  two  men  there  was  an  instinctive 
antagonism,  unreasoning,  never  openly  ac- 
knowledged by  either,  even  to  himself,  yet  of 
which  each  was  secretly  aware. 

"No;  how  is  he?"  Donald  replied  somewhat 
carelessly.  "Serene  as  ever,  I  suppose." 

"Of  all  the  nonsensical  blunders,"  Atkinson 
Matthews,  who  had  been  silently  devoting  him- 
self to  his  dinner,  now  exclaimed  abruptly,  "of 
all  the  nonsensical  blunders,  that  Trans-Conti- 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    183 

nental  affair  was  the  worst!  I  tell  you,  the 
way  these  fools  are  interfering  with  business  is 
ruining  the  country!  Reform's  all  very  well, 
but  it's  got  to  be  taken  in  mighty  small  doses 
if  it's  not  to  do  more  harm  than  good." 

"Well,  I  think  you're  right."  Drake  was 
speaking  the  truth,  but  it  was  a  truth  empha- 
sized by  that  unavowed  hostility.  He  knew 
how  widely  Forsythe's  opinions  differed  from 
those  of  his  great-uncle.  "If  they  don't  stop 
pretty  soon,  jamming  fool  laws —  Lord 
knows  we  need  a  rest!" 

The  exclamation  came  as  with  a  jump;  he 
lifted  his  wine  glass  hurriedly  and  drained  the 
contents;  his  hand  shook  as  he  set  it  down. 
Brainerd  noticed  the  start  and  the  trembling; 
his  first  glance  at  Drake  had  told  him  that  the 
younger  man  was  drinking  more  these  days 
than  was  good  for  him. 

"Indeed  we  do!"  For  the  moment  Ger- 
aldine  spoke  with  evident  sincerity.  "What's 
the  use  of  stirring  up  things  so?  It  only  up- 
sets people  and  hurts  business." 

"That's  sense!"  declared  Atkinson  Mat- 
thews emphatically  and  returned  to  his  dinner, 
leaving  Elsie  to  wish  that  it  had  been  she  who 
had  evoked  his  commendation,  not  Geraldine. 


184.     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"But  the  Trans-Continental  Trust  crowd 
were  a  set  of  thieves  1"  flashed  out  Nita. 

Forsythe's  lips  twisted  in  an  ironical  little 
smile.  "I'm  afraid  you  don't  appreciate  the 
divine  right  of  the  strongest  to  take  and  to 
keep.  Korner's  as  sure  that  any  interference 
with  him  is  Use  majeste  as  the  veriest  Hohen- 
zollern  of  them  all." 

"How  can  you  talk  so,  Donald?"  Elsie  ex- 
claimed angrily.  "Uncle  Atkinson  says  busi- 
ness men  ought  to  do  just  as  they  please,  and 
of  course  he  knows!" 

"An  aristocracy  of  money  kings,  beyond  and 
above  the  law,"  said  Dwight  Brainerd  lightly. 
"Is  that  the  idea?" 

"It's  all  very  well  for  you  to  laugh,  Doc- 
tor," responded  Geraldine  reproachfully,  "but 
if  you  were  the  wife  of  a  Wall  Street  man, 
you'd  know  what  hardships  such  disturbances 
bring.  We'd  have  had  our  car  a  year  sooner 
if  it  hadn't  been  for  the  Trans- Continental 
row.  Wouldn't  we,  Rudolph?" 

Drake  nodded  rather  gloomily.  He  was 
thinking  that  should  any  fresh  disturbance 
come  within  the  next  year  or  two,  they  would 
have  to  give  up  more  than  the  car. 

"I  hear  some  of  the  little  lambs  are  object- 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    185 

ing  to  being  sheared,  instead  of  displaying  that 
docility  which  befits  all  well-bred  sheep,"  For- 
sythe  remarked  a  trifle  drily. 

"Some  people  have  made  money  though," 
Brainerd  said,  endeavoring  to  help  along  the 
conversation.  "They  say  Cuthbert  Frayne 
cleaned  up  nearly  half  a  million." 

"Frayne  always  was  a  lucky  beast." 
Drake's  sullen  tone  seemed  to  close  the  sub- 
ject. 

A  minute's  silence  fell  on  the  ill-assorted 
group;  and  the  waitress  considerately  chose 
that  instant  to  let  a  couple  of  spoons  drop  on 
the  floor. 

Nita  saw  Geraldine's  smile,  saw  Elsie  wince 
before  it,  and  rushing  to  her  friend's  assistance, 
destroyed  the  pause  with  a  bit  of  harmless  gos- 
sip. For  a  little  while  the  three  women 
chatted  amicably  enough ;  Drake  and  Forsythe 
and  Atkinson  Matthews  sat  thinking  very  dif- 
ferent thoughts;  and  Brainerd  surveyed  them 
all  with  a  detached  and  meditative  gaze. 
Surely,  the  bringing  of  these  people  into  a 
more  or  less  close  relationship  was  a  prank  of 
the  laughing,  mischief -loving  little  gods!  He 
looked  from  soft,  childish  Elsie  to  Geraldine, 
slow-moving,  full-bosomed,  as  bare  of  shoul- 


186     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

ders  and  back  as  was  socially  permissible,  with 
heavy  lidded  eyes  and  reddened,  sensuous 
mouth;  then  let  his  gaze  pass  on  to  slender, 
supple  Nita,  alert,  vivid,  reminding  him  of  a 
Damascus  blade  encased  in  a  silken  sheath. 
Presently  his  glance  wandered  back  to  Elsie, 
who  was  leaning  forward  now,  so  that  the  can- 
dlelight shone  upon  her  face.  And  something 
about  the  soft  lips,  something  in  the  expression 
of  the  half -closed  eyes,  arrested  the  attention 
of  this  physician  who  had  given  much  time  and 
study  to  psycho-analysis.  He  was  not  sure, 
but  he  believed  he  glimpsed  certain  possibili- 
ties, neurotic — and  worse. 

He  felt  uncomfortably  as  though  he  had 
spied  into  another's  privacy  and  caught  sight 
of  some  deformity  usually  concealed. 

Drake's  eyes  too  were  wandering  from  one 
to  another  of  the  three  women.  He  was  wish- 
ing he  could  get  away,  could  be  alone  some- 
where where  he  could  drink  enough  to  dis- 
perse the  thoughts  and  desires  that  buzzed 
and  whirred  about  him  like  so  many  hor- 
nets. 

After  dinner,  Atkinson  Matthews  joined 
Nita;  his  old,  indulgent  liking  for  her  had 
never  diminished.  Elsie,  chattering  disjoint- 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    187 

edly  and  perfunctorily  to  Rudolph  Drake, 
hoped  Nita  was  impressing  upon  him  her  need 
of  a  motor;  for  a  time  expectations  of  coming 
joy  ran  high  within  her.  Then,  as  D wight 
Brainerd  left  Geraldine  and  strolled  across  the 
room  to  Nita,  she  thought  she  saw  her  oppor- 
tunity to  clinch  the  matter. 

"I've  hardly  been  able  to  say  a  word  to  you, 
Uncle  Atkinson.  How  are  you  feeling  now- 
adays?" she  asked  solicitously. 

"Oh,  pretty  well — pretty  well  for  an  old 
man."  His  quick,  shrewd  glance  belied  his 
paternal  smile.  He  had  never  been  fond  of 
Elsie. 

"You  really  must  take  care  of  yourself.  It 
wouldn't  do  for  you —  And  they  say  there's 
lots  of  pneumonia  around  this  winter,"  she 
added  hopefully. 

Atkinson  Matthews'  smile  had  become  sar- 
castic. 

"Don't  worry  about  me,"  he  replied.  "I'm 
a  very  cautious  person." 

"I  don't  suppose  I  ought  to  talk,"  Elsie 
went  on;  here  was  her  chance  to  discover 
whether  Nita  had  succeeded  in  getting  her 
what  she  wanted.  "Nita's  always  scolding  me 
and  telling  me  I  don't  get  out  into  the  air  half 


188     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

enough.     Did    she    say    anything    to    you, 
Uncle?" 

"No;  she  probably  thought  you'd  tell  me 
yourself  if  there  was  anything  wrong." 

So  Nita  hadn't  even  asked —  She  hadn't 
any  motor  herself — she  couldn't  afford  one— 
probably  she  was  jealous — it  was  perfectly 
horrid  of  her  to  be  so  selfish — 

These  thoughts  rushed,  tumbling  over  one 
another,  through  Elsie's  small  brain.  She 
could  not  stop  to  sort  them  out,  but  that  Nita 
had  been  "perfectly  horrid"  was  her  dominat- 
ing impression.  She  must  try  to  do  something 
for  herself. 

"Oh,  no,  indeed!  I'm  the  last  one  to  com- 
plain, even  when  I'm  almost  worried  to  death. 
Everything  costs  such  an  awful  lot  nowadays, 
you  know !  Donald  and  I  have  a  terribly  hard 
time  trying  to  make  ends  meet,  but  Z  never  say 
anything." 

Donald  caught  the  last  sentence,  and  his  thin 
lips  pressed  tightly  together.  If  only  she 
would  refrain  from  such  open  begging! 
Never  in  his  life  had  he  cringed  to  any 
one  for  help  or  favor,  and  now  she,  his 
wife  .  .  . 

Nita,  too,  had  heard  Elsie's  extremely  plain 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    189 

hint,  and  she  spoke  to  Forsythe  rather  hur- 
riedly: "I've  finished  a  draft  of  the  first  arti- 
cle, but  I'm  not  sure  it's  right." 

"I'll  drop  in  and  take  a  look  at  it  some  day 
soon;  I'll  call  you  up,  and  we'll  arrange  a 
time." 

Nita  made  a  swift  gesture  of  assent,  and 
Elsie  wondered  what  on  earth  they  had  been 
talking  about.  Just  then  the  Drakes'  car  was 
announced,  and  Geraldine,  who  all  through  the 
evening  had  been  watching  her  husband  with 
a  certain  veiled  anxiety,  said: 

"Come,  Rudolph,  we  must  go;  I'm  tired,  if 
you're  not.  He  does  three  men's  work  and 
never  seems  to  mind  it  in  the  least,"  she  added, 
turning  to  Matthews. 

The  words  were  commonplace  enough,  but 
something  in  the  tone  caught  Nita's  quick  ear. 
It  was  not  the  first  time  that  some  trifle  had 
made  her  ask  herself  whether  it  could  be  that 
Geraldine  really — cared?  Had  cared,  per- 
haps, all  along;  married  for  reasons  other  than 
those  which  she  herself,  in  common  with  the 
rest  of  their  little  world,  had  assigned  to  her? 
Had  she,  with  that  blind  self-confidence  of 
youth  which  fancies  it  sees  so  clearly,  been  un- 
just to  Geraldine? 


Her  thoughts  thus  engaged,  she  scarcely  no- 
ticed Drake.  But  Elsie  glanced  at  him,  and 
saw  with  surprise  that  his  eyes  were  fixed  hun- 
grily, worship  fully  on  the  clear-cut  face  and 
slender  throat  above  the  rose-pink  gown.  Un- 
observant as  she  was,  she  could  not  miss  the 
import  of  that  look.  She  wondered  whether 
Nita  were  really  as  indifferent  as  she  seemed, 
and  if  so,  why  ?  To  no  man's  admiration  would 
she  herself  have  been  thus  insensible!  But 
Nita  was  a  hard,  unsympathetic  sort  of  person 
at  bottom,  just  like  Donald!  And  men  were 
such  fools!  Sometimes  those  cold  women — 
It  had  been  silly  of  her  to  look  up  to  Nita  all 
these  years,  when  she  herself  was  really  so 
much  the  better,  as  well  as  the  prettier  of  the 
two! 

She'd  never  look  up  to  her  again  I  She  knew 
now  what  Nita  was!  Why,  she  could  have 
wheedled  that  motor  out  of  Uncle  Atkinson  as 
easily — but  she  was  too  mean  to  try,  even  when 
she  knew  her — Elsie's — health  depended  on  it ! 
No  one  was  willing  to  do  anything  for  her. 
Uncle  Atkinson  was  a  horrid  old  pig;  Donald 
ought  to  have  asked  him  for  an  allowance — 
insisted  upon  it — any  decent  man  would!  It 
was  only  because  he  didn't  want  her  to  have 


MRS.  FORSYTHE  ENTERTAINS    191 

things — and  Nita  didn't  want  her  to  have 
things — they  were  all  against  her.  But  she 
knew  Nita  now;  she'd  never  trust  her  any 
more.  .  .  . 

So  the  growth  of  years  withered  in  an  hour. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

OUT  OF  THE  DAEK 

4  'TT'ES,  I  think  I  see  now  what  you  mean. 
JL  Thanks  ever  so  much !  It's  very  good 
of  you  to  take  such  a  lot  of  trouble." 

While  she  spoke,  Nita  was  collecting  the 
scattered  sheets  of  manuscript;  this  done,  she 
looked  up,  her  luminous  gray-green  eyes  meet- 
ing Donald  Forsythe's  dark  ones  frankly  and 
smilingly. 

"Oh,  I  thought  it  would  be  better  to  show 
you — then  you'd  be  able  to  manage  the  rest 
without  any  bother."  His  glance  was  clear 
and  frank  as  her  own. 

"I  bought  the  last  number  of  the  Colonial" 
Nita  said,  "and  took  a  look  over  it  to  see  if  I 
could  get  any  notion  how  the  articles  were  put 
together." 

"Did  you  read  Barnaby's  serial?"  Forsythe 
asked,  with  a  mischievous  twinkle. 

Nita  nodded:  then  they  both  laughed. 

"It's  a  great  work,"  declaimed  Donald  with 
mock  solemnity.  "I  assure  you,  it's  a  great 


OUT  OF  THE  DARK          193 

and  noble  work!  Just  wait  until  that  hero  of 
his,  the  gallant  youth  from  the  untrammeled 
West,  really  starts  off!" 

Nita's  smile  had  faded;  she  spoke  impetu- 
ously, and  as  if  she  were  thinking  aloud. 

"It's  getting  on  your  nerves,"  she  said. 

An  instant  Donald  hesitated;  then  he 
grasped  again  at  that  manner  of  careless 
amusement  he  wore  like  a  cloak,  swiftly  caught 
and  wrapped  it  close  around  him,  almost  as 
though  he  feared  to  lose  it. 

"Oh,  no,"  he  replied  very  lightly,  very  in- 
differently. "After  all,  it's  merely  a  question 
of  demand  and  supply.  Fortunately,  the 
stock  of  twaddle  is  practically  unlimited.  Va- 
rieties of  it  appear  constantly.  Now,  this  eve- 
ning, for  instance,  we're  going  to  Geraldine's 
to  hear  Count  Czerni-what's-his-name  talk 
about  'The  Relation  of  Music  to  the  Planetary 
Forces.' " 

"I  thought  Geraldine  rather  scorned  the 
Count?  She  seemed  to  the  other  night,  when 
Elsie  spoke  of  him." 

"He  wasn't  much  of  a  success  at  Nell 
Dane's.  But  since  then  Mrs.  Vansorton  and 
her  crowd  have  decided  he's  the  eighth  wonder 
of  the  world — at  least." 


194     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

To  Nita's  straightforward  temperament  this 
talk,  which  had  so  little  to  do  with  their 
thoughts,  was  disagreeable  to  a  degree.  De- 
terminedly she  laid  hold  upon  it. 

"I  read  your  North  Eastern  article,"  she 
said  abruptly.  The  words  were  simple  even 
to  triteness;  but  they  conjured  up  a  multitude 
of  memories,  flung  wide  the  entrance  to  a  long 
vista  of  possibilities. 

"And  the  newspaper  comments?  They're 
mild  as  yet ;  I've  only  been  called  an  anarchist, 
a  savior  of  society,  and  a  few  other  things. 
Perhaps  when  the  third  and  fourth  appear — 
the  first  two  are  merely  gentle  preliminaries." 

"If  you  call  the  one  I  read  gentle — !" 

"I  assure  you  it  is — comparatively  speaking. 
Only  points  out  the  error  of  their  ways  in  a 
tender,  almost  fraternal  manner." 

"Burning  at  the  stake  for  the  good  of  their 
souls!" 

"Precisely  1"  And  beneath  the  light,  play- 
ful 'tone  she  suddenly  caught  a  glimpse  of 
something  hard,  inflexible  as  wrought  steel. 
"The  North  Eastern  people  gave  me  my  first 
instruction  in  Nietzschean  ethics  as  applied  to 
business.  I'm  greatly  indebted  to  them.  And 
what  I  owe,  I — pay." 


OUT  OF  THE  DARK          195 

It  was  a  pagan  creed,  perhaps,  this  that  he 
avowed  so  frankly;  but  it  struck  a  responsive 
chord  in  Nita.  Then,  with  a  desire  to  slip 
away  from  the  serious  note  which  was  partly 
intentional,  partly  instinctive,  she  exclaimed 
mischievously : 

"But  what  about  the  acquired  virtue?" 

An  instant  he  looked  at  her,  not  understand- 
ing the  allusion;  then  a  smile  crinkled  the  cor- 
ners of  his  eyes,  and  he  said  with  a  not  quite 
complete  return  to  his  usual  light  tone: 

"Tolerance?  It  can  be  carried  to  excess, 
even  when  it's  acquired — and  I  haven't  amassed 
any  large  quantity  of  it  I  Besides,  one  doesn't 
tolerate  vermin." 

"Then  you  class  John  Korner — ?" 

"With  other  rats." 

"You're  determined  to  carry  it  through?" 

"To  the  end."  The  lightness  was  all  gone 
now. 

"But  will  Delvain—  ?" 

"Delvain  won't  kick,  so  long  as  the  circula- 
tion keeps  on  growing.  For  lo!  The  adver- 
tiser loveth  a  large  circulation,  and  by  his  grace 
is  it  that  a  magazine  flourisheth  and  waxeth 
stout!" 

"He'll  risk  a  libel  suit?"  Nita  persisted. 


196     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Not  much  danger  of  that!  The  Trans- 
Continental  tried  it." 

And  then  at  last  she  gave  utterance  to  a 
part  at  least  of  the  thought  which  lay  in  the 
back  of  each  of  their  minds. 

"What  does  Mr.  Matthews  say?" 

Donald  paused.  By  nature  less  impetuous 
than  Nita,  he  had  long  known  how  needful  it 
was  for  him  to  bridle  his  tongue,  and  that  with 
curb  and  snaffle.  Atkinson  Matthews,  his 
wishes  and  his  fortune,  formed  one  of  Elsie's 
favorite  subjects  of  speculation  and  complaint. 
Therefore  he  replied  slowly,  though  with  an 
attempted  return  to  the  careless,  half  mocking 
tone  he  so  often  used: 

"Oh,  he  came  into  the  office  a  few  days  after 
my  article  appeared  and  read  me  the  riot  act 
in  at  least  six  different  languages.  I  know  you 
can  stand  a  certain  amount  of  profanity,  but — 
well,  one  of  the  office  boys  chanced  to  overhear 
a  few  fragments  of  his  discourse,  and  fainted 
on  the  spot!" 

"With  horror,  or  admiration?"  laughed  Nita, 
swift  to  comprehend  and  meet  his  tone. 

"Oh,  admiration!  He's  been  trying  to  rival 
him  ever  since." 

She  started  to  speak,  and  checked  herself. 


OUT  OF  THE  DARK          197 

The  short  winter  twilight  was  fading;  on  the 
tall  buildings  to  north  and  west  lights  shone  in 
straight,  encircling  garlands. 

There  was  a  brief  silence,  not  empty,  but 
crowded  with  things  unspoken,  more  than  half 
divined.  And  this  time  it  was  Donald  who 
changed  the  subject,  and  changed  it  far  from 
dexterously. 

"You  don't  think  very  much  of  that  man's 
playing,  do  you?"  He  did  not  suspect  how 
much  of  his  hidden  anxiety  he  was  betraying 
by  this  recurrence  to  a  matter  already  discussed 
and  laid  aside. 

But  Nita  understood.  And  in  the  shield- 
ing dusk  she  winced  a  little,  not  quite  knowing 
why. 

"No,  I  do  not,"  she  replied  emphatically, 
adding  almost  at  random:  "He  has  a  certain 
theatrical  sense — " 

Donald's  shoulder  jerked.  "That's  it,  ex- 
actly! It's  his  melodramatic  quality  Geral- 
dine  and  the  rest  are  so  wild  about.  They'll 
be  tired  of  it  before  long." 

"It's  perfectly  sickening,  this  rushing  after 
first  one  craze  and  then  another — no  matter 
what,  if  only  it's  the  latest  thing!"  Nita  burst 
out,  quite  unpremeditatedly.  "Oh,  I  know  it's 


198     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

only  silliness  and  the  sheep  instinct,  but  when 
life's  so  short,  and  there  are  such  heaps  of 
really  worth-while  things  to  do  and  to  enjoy, 
all  this  fussing  and  fuming  about  clothes  and 
fashions  and  the  newest  dance  step  and  the 
latest  fad  we  all  waste  so  much  time  on  seems 
perfectly  imbecile!" 

"From  a  notoriously  well  dressed  woman 
and  one  of  the  best  dancers  in  New  York — "  he 
began,  but  she  interrupted  him,  throwing  out 
her  hands  in  a  swift  protesting  gesture. 

"Oh,  I  know,  I  know!  And  it's  just  that — 
my  own  waste — that  frightens  me!  When  I 
think  how  much  of  my  life  is  gone,  and  how 
little  I've  done  with  it,  how  much  I  meant  to 
do,  and  how  many  of  the  big  things  have 
slipped  by — " 

She  paused  abruptly.  She  had  given  vehe- 
ment, incomplete,  and  rather  incoherent  ex- 
pression to  a  mixture  of  thoughts  and  feelings 
which  had  long  been  fermenting  in  her  mind. 
Something  of  the  old  thirst  for  life  and  yet 
more  life,  something  of  the  old  eager  craving 
for  experiences  of  any  and  every  kind,  some- 
thing of  the  astonished  dismay  which  seizes  so 
many  of  us  when  we  realize  that  our  youth  is 
going,  realize  "the  little  done,  the  undone 


OUT  OF  THE  DARK          199 

vast,"  compare  the  splendid  hopes  with  which 
we  started  out  and  our  actual  achievement,  met 
and  mingled  in  those  brief  phrases. 

And  behind  all  these  lay  that  consciousness 
of  spiritual  isolation  which  comes  to  us  all  at 
times,  when  the  solitude  of  our  own  souls 
frightens  «fus,  and  we  stretch  forth  groping 
hands. 

"If  you  feel  that,"  said  the  man  almost 
harshly,  "what  about  me?  What  do  you  think 
7— "  ' 

He  stopped,  breaking  the  phrase. 

For  an  instant  they  sat  staring  at  each  other 
through  the  gathering  dusk  of  the  February 
afternoon — dusk  which  while  they  were  talk- 
ing had  become  darkness  lighted  only  by  a 
few  rays  from  the  lamps  in  Gramercy  Park. 
And  both  were  aware  of  a  sudden  nearness; 
and  both  were  aware  of  an  indefinite,  gripping 
fear,  as  though  some  shadowy,  phantasmic 
monster  had  leaped  upon  them  out  of  the 
gloom. 

For  the  first  time  in  all  the  years  of  their 
peaceful  friendship,  each  felt  that  a  crisis  had 
come. 

Only  an  instant  had  passed  when  Nita 
sprang  to  her  feet  and  touched  the  switch  but- 


200     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

ton  on  the  wall.  A  soft  light  flooded  the  quiet, 
homelike  room,  thrusting  them  apart  who  for 
that  instant  had  drawn  close — unbelievably 
close — to  each  other. 

"There!"  she  exclaimed.  "That's  better, 
isn't  it?  I  fancy  I  was  beginning  to  see 
spooks !" 

Her  voice  was  a  little  unsteady,  and  she 
avoided  Forsythe's  glance;  yet  that  instant  of 
nearness  was  already  beginning  to  seem  unreal. 

After  Donald  had  gone,  Nita  changed  her 
gown.  There  was  no  apparent  reason  for  do- 
ing so ;  only  one  guest  was  coming  to  dine  with 
her,  and  the  Liberty  confection  of  delicate 
pinks  and  grays  into  which  she  slipped  was  of 
much  the  same  type  as  the  wistaria-hued  one 
of  which  she  divested  herself ;  it  was  a  yielding, 
half  instinctive,  to  an  impulse  into  which  she 
refused  to  probe.  Unconsciously  she  was  try- 
ing to  dismiss  Donald  Forsythe  from  her  mind, 
to  fasten  her  thoughts  on  the  coming  visitor. 

She  might  have  found  this  dismissal  impossi- 
ble had  she  not  been  interested  in  her  expected 
guest  as  well  as  fond  of  her.  Mary  Nelson 
had  been  brought  up  in  a  small  town  by  an 
uncle  and  aunt  to  whom  happiness  here  meant 


OUT  OF  THE  DARK          201 

hell  fire  hereafter.  With  the  best  intentions 
possible,  they  had  mentally  starved  her  until 
she  at  last  managed  to  break  away  and  become 
one  of  New  York's  many  self-supporting 
women.  But  the  traces  of  her  revolt  never 
left  her,  and  she  still  regarded  her  cigarette 
case  as  a  banner,  and  a  cocktail  as  a  Declara- 
tion of  Independence. 

Now  as,  dinner  finished,  she  sprawled  in  the 
biggest  of  Nita's  chairs,  a  cigarette  between 
her  awkward  fingers,  she  looked  across  to 
where  her  hostess  sat  perched  in  her  favorite 
place  on  the  window  seat,  arms  clasped  about 
her  knees,  spirited  little  golden-brown  head 
thrown  back,  talking  quickly,  with  swift-flung 
words  and  an  occasional  eloquent  movement  of 
her  expressive  hands: 

"I've  known  Helen  Carstairs  for  years— 
never  well,  she's  quite  a  bit  younger  than  I  am 
—and  I  must  say  I'm  sorry  for  her.  Mr.  Car- 
stairs  is  one  of  the  pleasantest  men  to  meet  you 
can  imagine — perfectly  charming  manners. 
Every  one  liked  him  and  thought  him  a  fine 
specimen  of  the  American  business  gentleman 
— Heavens !" 

Mary  Nelson  spoke  slowly,  with  many 
pauses:  "I  wonder  what  he  thinks  of  him- 


202     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

self — now.  He's  a  thief,  of  course ;  but  do  you 
suppose — he  was — a  deliberate — " 

Nita,  her  quick  comprehension  rushing  to 
the  end  of  her  friend's  sentence,  broke  in : 

"A  deliberate  thief!  Ye  gods  and  little 
fishes,  how  could  he  be  anything  else?  Why, 
Mary,  it  went  on  for  years !  Organized  cheat- 
ing— that's  what  it  was!" 

"I  know."  Mary's  forehead  puckered  pain- 
fully with  the  effort  to  express  the  idea  in  her 
mind.  "It  looks  that  way — it  is  that  way,  of 
course.  But  don't  you  suppose  he — somehow 
— made  things  seem — different — " 

"Twisted  the  whole  business  about  until  he 
was  able  to  justify  himself  in  his  own  eyes?" 

Mary  nodded  gratefully.  As  so  often  hap- 
pened, Nita  had  clothed  her  thoughts  in  the 
phrases  she  herself  was  unable  to  find  for  them. 

"Um-m!"  Nita  stared  meditatively  out  over 
the  park.  "I  doubt  it!  What  makes  you 
fancy — ?" 

"Only  this" — and  again  Mary's  brow  puck- 
ered as  the  long-considered  creed  was  slowly 
pronounced — "only  this:  I  don't  believe  any 
one — any  one  who's  normal  or  whose  mind 
hasn't  been — hasn't  been — " 

"Perverted?" 


OUT  OF  THE  DARK          203 

"Yes ;  perverted  when  they  were  young,  ever 
deliberately  does  anything  very  wrong  without 
— without — " 

"Fixing  it  up  until  it  looks  all  right  ?"  Nita 
bent  forward  eagerly;  her  slight  body  seemed 
poised  as  for  a  spring. 

"And  then — when  realization  comes — I  won- 
der! Can  you  imagine  yourself  doing  any- 
thing you  thought  really — really  wrong, 
Nita?" 

"Oh,  but  I  have— lots  of  times!" 

Mary  brushed  the  admission  aside  with  a 
clumsy  gesture  which  scattered  cigarette  ash 
all  over  Nita's  deep-toned  Chinese  rug. 

"I  don't  mean  little  things — little  fibs  and 
little — naughtinesses."  She  had  been  about  to 
say  meannesses,  but  changed  the  word.  Noth- 
ing of  that  sort  could  be  made  to  fit  in  with 
her  somewhat  exalted  idea  of  Nita  Wynne. 
"I  mean  a  big  wrong — a — a — " 

"A  moral  crime?" 

Once  more  Mary  nodded  her  assent  to  the 
other's  interpretation.  But  this  time  silence 
followed.  For  Nita  was  again  conscious  of 
the  vague  terror  which  had  shivered  through 
her  that  afternoon.  And  with  the  terror  came 
not  the  laughing  protest  with  which  a  few  years 


204     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

— weeks,  perhaps — earlier  she  would  have  met 
the  question,  but  doubt.  Doubt  of  herself 
which  was  pain,  a  certainty  that  she  had  never 
yet  been  tested. 

It  was  only  for  a  moment  that  this  indefinite 
fear  and  definite  doubt  held  and  shook  her,  but 
it  was  a  moment  which  remained  in  her  mem- 
ory as  a  landmark. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said.  And  now  it  was 
she  who  spoke  slowly,  looking  up  at  the  sky 
where  gathering  clouds  obscured  the  stars. 
"If  I  was  tempted  enough — how  can  I  tell?" 

"That's  just  it — how  can  any  of  us  tell? 
And  then  we  haven't  all  the  same  standards — 
don't  think  the  same  things  wrong — and  that 
mixes  it  up  dreadfully.  Now  my  uncle  and 
aunt — they  thought  they  were  only  doing  their 
duty.  I  can  see  that  now — " 

The  talk  drifted  away  into  an  impersonal 
discussion,  but  through  Nita's  brain  certain 
phrases  kept  running:  "Tolerance  that  isn't 
learned  is  poor,  sloppy,  slushy  sort  of  stuff. 
...  As  bad  as  being  easy  on  yourself  and  hard 
on  other  people." 

Charity — forbearance.  Mary  had  acquired 
these,  had  learned  to  understand  the  point  of 
view  of  those  relatives  she  had  once  regarded 


OUT  OF  THE  DARK          205 

simply   as   tyrants.     But   as   for   her,   Nita 
Wynne — 

She  had  been,  perhaps  was  even  yet,  hard  on 
other  people!  If  the  test  should  ever  come, 
would  she  flinch  and  be  easy  on  herself? 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ELSIE  DECLARES   WAR 

WINTER  merged  into  spring,  the  pleas- 
ant, unshadowed  spring  of  1914.  Nita 
felt  that  the  season  had  affected  her  to  an  un- 
usual extent,  bringing  both  a  loss  of  energy 
and  an  increase  of  restlessness.  It  seemed  to 
her  as  though  she  were  waiting,  marking  time 
— the  time  that  was  slipping  away  so  fast — 
accomplishing  nothing  worth  while.  It  was 
her  belief  that  as  every  human  being  owes  to 
others  the  conditions  which  enable  him  to  exist, 
it  is  his  or  her  duty  to  justify  that  existence  by 
rendering  to  the  world  the  very  best  return 
that  he  can  for  value  received.  She  still  loved 
her  own  work,  but  it  no  longer  impressed  her 
as  sufficient. 

With  Elsie  her  relations  had  become  just  a 
trifle  strained.  For  from  resentment  because 
Nita  had  not  used  on  her  behalf  the  influence 
with  which  she  mistakenly  credited  her,  Elsie 
had  rapidly  progressed  to  a  belief  that  she  had 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR       207 

somehow  worked  against  her.  Her  thoughts 
were  not  clear,  even  to  herself,  but  she  felt  in- 
jured, and  in  her  attitude  towards  her  old 
friend  there  was  now  a  certain  distrust,  a  cer- 
tain incipient  hostility.  She  had  begun  to 
watch  for  offenses,  and  they,  expected  and 
looked  for,  are  sure  to  come. 

Nita  was  by  no  means  unaware  of  the 
change.  But  though  it  troubled  her  a  little, 
the  trouble  was  more  than  counterbalanced  by 
the  new  note  in  Elsie's  talk  about  the  Count. 
If  she  put  more  emphasis  than  ever  on  his  ad- 
miration of  herself,  it  was  emphasis  which  had 
become  just  a  bit  supercilious.  The  air  of 
amusement  with  which  Donald,  who  knew  that 
opposition  was  as  flame  to  tinder,  had  through- 
out treated  the  affair  was  beginning  now  to 
have  its  effect,  and  when  Elsie  avowed  that 
she  had  always  thought  Count  Czerniatowski 
a  fortune  hunter,  "like  all  those  foreign  noble- 
men, you  know,"  Nita  felt  sure  the  crisis  was 
past. 

Nevertheless,  and  for  the  first  time  in  all 
the  years  during  which  a  rather  one-sided  in- 
timacy had  existed  between  them,  Elsie  puz- 
zled her.  Never  before  had  invitations  to  dine 
at  the  Forsythes'  been  so  showered  upon  her, 


208     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

and  yet  with  every  meeting  she  grew  more  and 
more  conscious  of  that  incipient  hostility. 
She  tried  to  tell  herself  it  was  all  imagination, 
but  her  instincts  refused  to  be  cheated.  Was 
her  long  service  as  a  kind  of  safety  valve  at  an 
end? 

Yet  Elsie  was  more  than  ever  lavish  with 
protestations  of  affection,  especially  when  in 
June  they  both  went  down  to  East  Hampton 
for  the  summer.  And  Nita  insisted  to  herself 
that  her  fancy  had  been  playing  tricks  with 
her. 

So  it  happened  that  they  were  having  tea 
together  on  a  certain  July  afternoon.  The 
Fourth  was  just  over,  the  majority  of  the  men 
had  gone  back  to  town,  and  most  of  the  women 
were  resting  and  recovering  from  the  holiday. 
Consequently  the  broad  veranda  of  the  Maid- 
stone  Club  had  a  somewhat  forlorn  look,  two 
or  three  tea  tables  merely  emphasizing  the  gen- 
eral effect  of  empty  spaces. 

"Of  course,"  Elsie  remarked  plaintively, 
"of  course  you  know  I  never  find  fault  with 
people.  I'm  always  ready  to  make  allow- 
ances, but  I  do  think  it  was  awfully  mean  of 
Geraldine  not  to  ask  me  to  that  lunch  she  gave 
last  May!  Suppose  she  did  invite  only  half 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR       209 

a  dozen!  People  must  have  thought  it  aw- 
fully queer— my  own  sister.  It  gave  me  one 
of  my  headaches,  and  you  know  what  my  head- 
aches— There's  Evelyn  Acland,  going  over 
the  golf  links!  /  don't  think  she's  so  awfully 
pretty;  do  you?" 

"Yes,  very  pretty;  her  complexion — " 

"Well,  you  know  she  was  perfectly  devoted 
to  Doctor  Brainerd  for  an  awfully  long  time. 
I  told  Donald  I — but  you  know  how  he  is! 
And  of  course  it  wouldn't  do  for  me  to  say 
much.  Poor  man!  I  do  feel  sorry  for  him, 
but  how  could  I  help  it  if  he —  Who's  that 
man  over  there?  Do  you  know  him ?" 

"It's  Mr.  Frayne.  I've  met  him."  Nita's 
tone  was  not  enthusiastic.  "But  Elsie,  who 
on  earth  told  you  that  ridiculous  story  about 
Evelyn  and  Doctor  Brainerd?  There's  not  a 
word  of  truth  in  it." 

She  spoke  earnestly,  for  the  tale  Elsie  had 
repeated  was  gossip  of  a  kind  she  particularly 
disliked.  Not  the  slightest  attention,  how- 
ever, did  her  protest  receive.  When  a  man 
appeared,  Elsie's  interest  was  immediately 
and  irremovably  focussed. 

"Oh!"  she  exclaimed  joyfully.  "He's  seen 
you — he's  c6ming  this  way!" 


210     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Before  Nita  could  reply,  Mr.  Frayne  had 
approached  and  was  shaking  hands  with  her,  a 
thing  he  would  assuredly  not  have  done  had 
almost  any  other  of  his  numerous  acquaint- 
ances been  in  sight;  it  was  only  the  fact  that 
he  had  no  choice  save  that  of  her  society  or  a 
magazine  which  drove  him  to  her.  For  Miss 
Wynne  disliked  Cuthbert  Frayne,  regarding 
him  as  an  excellent  example  of  a  type  she  did 
not  in  the  least  admire,  and  he,  being  aware  of 
her  dislike  and  lack  of  admiration,  cordially  re- 
turned the  former  and  was  irritated  because 
her  business  success  and  social  position  extorted 
his  respect. 

He  was  at  that  time  a  man  of  between 
forty  and  forty-five,  of  medium  height  and 
very  heavily  built,  with  bright,  china-blue  eyes, 
a  short,  thick  neck,  and  a  number  of  little 
tufts  of  coarse  hair  growing  out  of  his  ears 
and  nostrils.  He  admired  himself  hugely, 
partly  because  he  was  very  rich,  partly  because 
he  was  in  his  own  opinion  a  man  of  strong 
character.  Certain  it  was  that  he  usually  had 
his  way,  and  at  the  same  time  contrived  to  keep 
within  the  letter  of  the  law.  He  never  allowed 
scruples  or  a  regard  for  the  rights  and  feel- 
ings of  any  one  else  to  stand  in  his  path,  hav- 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR      211 

ing  no  use  for  what  he  tersely  and  inclusively 
described  as  "damned  nonsense!" 

"This  is  luck!"  he  exclaimed  with  that  ap- 
pearance of  hearty  good  humor  which  had 
misled  more  than  one  unfortunate  individual. 
"I've  been  yawnin'  my  head  off  in  the  billiard 
room,  knockin'  the  balls  around  and  wonderin' 
what  on  earth  I  could  do  with  myself.  Have 
tea  with  me,  won't  you?" 

The  arrival  of  the  waitress  with  the  loaded 
tea  tray  made  only  one  answer  possible,  but 
Nita's  tone  was  frosty: 

"We've  already  ordered  tea,  thank  you. 
This  is  ours,  coming  now.  Perhaps  you'll  join 
us?" 

He  responded  by  dropping  heavily  into  a 
chair — he  never  sat  down,  but  always  dropped 
— and  Nita  was  obliged  to  introduce  him  to 
Elsie. 

"Your  husband  old  Matthews'  nephew, 
Mrs.  Forsythe?"  he  asked  at  once.  Then 
turning  on  the  waitress  before  Elsie  could  an- 
swer, he  demanded:  "Say,  haven't  you  got 
any  cake  to-day?  Just  the  regular  truck? 
Stupidest  lot  of  old  fossils  runnin'  this  club  I 
ever  struck!  Should  think  some  of  the  live 
ones  'ud  get  hold  of  things  and  shake  'em  up  a 


212     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

bit.  I  would,  if  I  was  down  here  more.  Is 
your  husband  that  Forsythe?" 

"Yes ;  Mr.  Matthews  is  my  husband's  great- 
uncle.  Do  you  know  him?"  Elsie's  tone  was 
as  cordial  as  Nita's  had  been  cool. 

"Oh,  Lord,  yes!  Funny  old  codger,  ain't 
he?  Got  some  good  sound  ideas,  though. 
Guess  he  don't  much  like  the  way  Forsythe's 
been  layin*  into  the  North  Eastern?" 

It  was  distinctly  a  question.  Cuthbert 
Frayne  never  lost  a  chance  of  acquiring  in- 
formation, information,  that  is,  of  the  kind  he 
called  practical. 

Elsie  looked  bewildered.  She  occasionally 
read  some  of  the  fiction  published  in  the 
Colonial,  but  never  any  of  her  husband's 
articles.  And  she  was  trying  to  remember 
where  and  what  she  had  heard  of  this  Mr. 
Frayne.  Suddenly  it  came  to  her;  her  own 
dinner  table,  Doctor  Brainerd's  voice;  "They 
say  Cuthbert  Frayne  cleaned  up  nearly  half  a 
million." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  asked. 

"Why,  those  articles  he's  been  writin'  for 
the  what's-it's-name — the  Colonial." 

"I've  never  looked  at  any  of  them,"  Elsie 
faltered  plaintively.  "You  know,  Mr. 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR      213 

Frayne,  I'm  awfully  stupid  about  business  and 
figures  and  things.  I  knew  Donald  had  been 
writing  about  the  North  Eastern.  It's  that 
big  railroad,  of  course?" 

Frayne  chuckled.  "It's  gettin'  to  be  a 
pretty  mad  railroad !  Of  course,  there's  never 
much  doin'  in  summer — nothin'  goin'  on  now 
but  the  Mexican  squabble — and  so  people  are 
glad  to  have  somethin'  to  talk  about." 

Nita  spoke  quickly,  crisply.  "Those  arti- 
cles are  making  talk,  then?  Well,  when  the 
next  comes  out — the  August  one — " 

"Oh-h!     You've  read  it  already?" 

His  meaning  was  as  unmistakable  as  it  was 
insolent.  Nita  flushed  and  was  furious  with 
herself. 

"I'm  a  contributor  to  the  magazine,"  she 
said  haughtily.  "I  see  it  in  proof." 

"Yes — yes.  I  see.  I — see,"  Frayne  an- 
swered. "And  so  the  next  is  to  be  hot  stuff, 
is  it?  Well,  August's  a  good  time  for  that 
sort  o'  thing." 

Nita,  disdaining  to  reply,  sat  watching  the 
cloud  shadows  chase  each  other  across  the  white 
lines  of  the  sand  dunes  and  over  the  rippling, 
wind-ruffled  waters  of  the  little  pond,  drifting 
on  until  they  disappeared  beyond  the  tree-clad, 


214     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

rising  ground  farther  along.  The  beauty  of 
it  all  restored  her  serenity.  What,  after  all, 
did  Cuthbert  Frayne  or  his  opinions  matter  to 
her? 

"It's  against  the  railroad,  then?  I  thought 
the  articles  were  just  about  it!  Uncle  Atkin- 
son won't  like  that."  Elsie's  tone  was  at  once 
anxious  and  appealing.  "Do  please  tell  me 
more,  Mr.  Frayne,"  she  added,  as  if  requesting 
advice  from  an  oracle — a  manner  very  pleasing 
to  this  man  who  loved  to  domineer. 

"Well,  it  seems  your  husband's  got  his  own 
ideas  about  business,  and  the  way  the  North 
Eastern  people  have  been  runnin'  theirs  don't 
suit  him." 

"Oh,  is  that  all?"  Elsie  felt  vaguely  relieved. 

"All?"  Cuthbert  Frayne  laughed  loudly. 
"All?  I  guess  they  think  it's  enough!" 

Elsie  puckered  her  pretty  forehead,,  per- 
plexed and  dismayed.  In  her  broad-brimmed 
white  straw  hat  piled  with  snowdrops  and 
clinging,  transparent  gown — semi-nudity  was 
the  fashion  that  summer — she  looked  more  soft 
and  warm  and  Persian-kittenish  than  ever. 
But  she  was  planning  to  use  her  claws  on  her 
husband  the  very  first  time  he  came  down  from 
New  York  for  a  week-end.  Why  hadn't  he 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR      215 

told  her  what  he  was  doing?  Of  course,  she 
wasn't  going  to  be  bothered  reading  his  stupid 
old  articles — why  hadn't  he  gone  in  for  some- 
thing interesting  like — like — oh,  well,  some- 
thing he  could  have  gotten  lots  of  money  out 
of!  She  wasn't  fit  to  be  so  loaded  down  with 
worries  and  responsibilities — and  after  all 
she'd  done  for  him,  too!  Exactly  what  these 
meritorious  deeds  of  hers  were  she  would  have 
found  it  difficult  if  not  impossible  to  state,  but 
she  was  sure  they  were  innumerable. 

Nita  glanced  at  the  tiny,  green-enameled 
watch  on  her  wrist,  and  rose. 

"I  must  go  now,"  she  said.  "I'm  dining 
out." 

Elsie  glanced  up,  started  to  speak,  and 
stopped.  Nita  might  return  to  the  Inn  if  she 
pleased.  There  was  no  reason  why  she  her- 
self should  not  remain  where  she  was  and  go 
on  talking  to  Mr.  Frayne.  She  gave  him  an 
appealing,  sidelong  glance  as  she  replied: 

"Very  well,  darling.  I  think  I'll  stay  here 
a  little  longer."  Her  tone  was  indifferent ;  but 
there  had  been  no  shadow  of  indifference  in  her 
look. 

Nita  went  through  the  clubhouse  and  turned 
down  the  road  leading  to  the  Inn.  But  de- 


216     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

spite  her  excuse,  she  did  not  immediately  go 
indoors,  but  continued  towards  Main  Street. 
There  the  peace  of  the  little  town  pond,  bor- 
dered with  ancient,  drooping  willows,  the  soft 
deep  lights  and  shadows  caressing  water  and 
trees,  the  silver  poplars  turning  the  pale  under- 
side of  their  leaves  to  the  cool  breeze,  sun- 
drenched, fragrant  with  the  scent  of  roses  and 
honeysuckle  from  the  many  village  gardens, 
soothed  her  ruffled  temper. 

Elsie  waited  until  she  was  sure  Nita  was  out 
of  earshot,  and  then  remarked  pensively: 
"Nita  Wynne's  awfully  clever,  isn't  she  ?  You 
know  she  makes  just  heaps  and  heaps  of 
money/' 

"She's  done  mighty  well,"  Frayne  admitted 
grudgingly.  Respectable  women  he  mentally 
divided  into  two  classes :  those  who  earned  their 
own  living,  and  those  who  did  not.  The 
former  he  considered  grossly  overpaid  if  they 
received  more  than  twenty  dollars  a  week. 
What  could  women  of  that  sort,  the  rejected  of 
men,  as  he  liked  to  believe  them,  do  with  all 
that?  The  latter,  of  course,  might  have  just 
as  much  as  their  husbands  or  fathers  could  give 
them,  for  thus  they  became  walking  testimon- 
ials of  prosperity. 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR      217 

Elsie  found  his  tone  encouraging.  She 
spoke  in  her  prettiest,  most  confidential  man- 
ner: "Well,  you  know  I'm  not  a  bit  like  that 
— not  a  bit  clever  about  business,  I  mean — and 
it's  awfully  hard  on  me  sometimes  when  I  don't 
understand.  You  see,  if  I'd  been  told  what 
Donald  was  doing — " 

"I  don't  know  as  I  could  explain." 

"Oh,  but  I  don't  want  you  to!"  Elsie  cried 
quickly.  Explanation  would  have  wearied  her 
almost  as  much  as  it  would  have  bored  him. 
"I  don't  care  a  bit  about  the  horrid  old  rail- 
road, I  never  could  see  any  use  in  a  woman's 
learning  about  such  things — awfully  unfemi- 
nine,  I  call  it.  It's  Uncle  Atkinson  I'm  think- 
ing of." 

He  laughed  again.  "That's  sensible!  It's 
how  it  may  hit  you  you're  worry  in'  about?" 

She  gave  two  or  three  vehement  little  nods, 
and  he  drew  his  chair  a  trifle  closer. 

"Mind  if  I  smoke?"  Without  waiting  for 
her  answer,  he  lit  a  very  long,  very  black  cigar 
and  went  on;  "Say,  that  feller  who's  just  gone 
off  in  the  racer's  got  a  horn  like  mine!  Hear 
it?  Regular  'Hi,  there,  you!  Get  out  o'  my 
way !'  I  like  that  sort.  Well,  I  suppose  your 
husband  knows  his  own  business  and  his  own 


218     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

uncle,  but  I  should  say  that  if  he's  lookin'  to 
get  anythin'  from  Matthews — " 

"Yes—?" 

"He's  runnin'  an  almighty  big  risk  of  get- 
tin'— left." 

"Oh,  how  awfully  mean  of  Donald!"  she 
cried.  "When  he  knows  I — 

She  broke  off,  winking  back  the  ever-ready 
tears.  Again  and  again,  since  his  discovery  a 
few  weeks  after  their  marriage  that  she  was 
confidently  counting  on  his  inheritance  of  At- 
kinson Matthews'  fortune,  had  Donald  warned 
her  not  to  expect  anything  from  the  dictatorial 
old  man  who  might  easily  take  it  into  his  head 
to  cut  them  off  with  the  proverbial  shilling,  but 
she  had  never  been  willing  to  pay  any  attention 
to  him.  Unless  absolutely  forced  to  do  so,  she 
never  believed  anything  that  was  not  pleasant. 

"You  could  do  with  some  of  the  old  man's 
coin,  eh?  And  you  ought  to  have  it !  There's 
nothin'  so  well  worth  spendin'  money  on  as  a 
pretty  woman  I  Some  fellers  would  be  darned 
glad  to  have  Forsythe's  chance!" 

Elsie  blushed  prettily ;  with  pleasure,  not  an- 
noyance. Anything  might  be  pardoned  a  man 
who  admired  her — and  said  so !  She  had  aired 
her  grievances  against  her  husband  often  and 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR       219 

to  people  of  both  sexes,  but  few  of  them  had 
proved  so  sympathetic  as  this  Mr.  Frayne. 
She  felt  sure  they  were  going  to  be  very  good 
friends. 

They  stayed  there  talking  until  the  shadows 
grew  long  over  the  tennis  courts  and  the  rolling 
golf  course  far  beyond  them,  that  stretches  out 
to  Hook  Pond  and  the  low-lying  sand  dunes 
which  separate  it  from  the  ocean.  And  when 
at  last  they  bade  each  other  good  night,  it  was 
with  reluctance  and  an  engagement  to  go 
motoring  together  next  day. 

Nita  had  of  course  been  aware  from  the  first 
that  trouble  would  come  so  soon  as  Elsie 
learned  of  Atkinson  Matthews'  wrath.  What 
she  had  not  expected  was  the  ill  temper  pres- 
ently manifested  towards  herself:  Elsie  ob- 
viously avoided  her  and  sulked  openly.  As 
they  were  both  staying  at  the  Inn,  they  met  a 
dozen  times  a  day,  and  Elsie's  spoilt-child  be- 
havior was  quickly  noticed  and  freely  dis- 
cussed, though  always  behind  Nita's  back. 
But  it  was  two  or  three  weeks  before  the  storm 
broke. 

Donald,  looking  thin  and  tired,  came  down 
to  East  Hampton  for  a  brief  holiday.  Elsie 
had  fully  intended  "to  give  him  a  piece  of  her 


220     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

mind"  at  once,  but  an  invitation  to  tea  at  Mrs. 
Lemaine's  proving  too  attractive  to  be  resisted, 
she  was  away  when  he  arrived ;  so  they  had  no 
opportunity  for  any  private  talk  before  din- 
ner. Afterwards  Ted  Bryant's  insistence 
brought  them  both,  with  Nita,  into  one  of  the 
small  card  rooms  for  bridge.  Donald,  wearily 
hoping  to  defer  the  scene  with  Elsie  which  his 
knowledge  of  her  told  him  was  surely  coming, 
yielded  quite  willingly  to  Bryant's  entreaties; 
Nita  with  reluctance,  and  a  feeling  that  since 
trouble  was  inevitable,  the  sooner  it  came  the 
better;  and  Elsie  because  she  could  not  bear  to 
refuse  any  man's  flatteringly  worded  request 
— except  her  husband's. 

"Haven't  had  a  decent  rubber  for  a  week," 
Bryant  remarked,  as  he  shuffled  the  cards. 
"Every  one's  stark  staring  mad  about  these 
new  dances.  I  tried  to  get  that  man  Frayne 
to  play  one  night — he's  a  shark  at  it — but  he 
was  huffy  and  wouldn't.  Know  him,  For- 
sythe?" 

"Yes;  he's  rather  interesting;  he  runs  so  true 
to  type." 

"Where  did  he  get  his  money  from,  any- 
way?" Bryant  asked.  He  felt  that  his  al- 
lusion to  the  dancing  craze  had  been  tactless, 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR      221 

and  was  glad  to  find  another,  almost  any  other, 
subject. 

"Oh,  his  father  made  a  fortune  during  the 
Civil  War,  supplying  paper-soled  shoes  to  the 
Federal  troops,  nice,  flimsy  things  that  gave 
the  men's  feet  abundant  ventilation.  His  son 
keeps  up  the  business,  and  prospers  even  as 
did  his  sire." 

Bryant  laughed.  "Guess  he  doesn't  need  to 
envy  the  old  man  his  luck  in  living  in  war 
time!" 

Forsythe's  face  grew  very  grave.  "Per- 
haps he'll  have  the  same — luck — himself." 

"Oh,  nonsense!  There'll  never  be  another 
big  war.  It  would  cost  too  much ;  the  nations 
couldn't  afford  it.  Austria  and  Russia  are 
just  snarling  at  each  other,  that's  all."  Bry- 
ant spoke  in  the  easy,  confident  tone  so  many 
people  used  during  those  last  days  of  July, 
1914. 

"I  hope  you're  right,  only — I  don't  trust 
Germany." 

"Oh,  Donald,  stop  talking  your  awfully 
scary  politics  and  hurry  up  and  deal.  You 
couldn't  go,  not  if  there  were  a  dozen  wars,  so 
why  fuss?"  exclaimed  Elsie  pettishly. 

"Bit  of  an  alarmist,  isn't  he,  Mrs.  For- 


222     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

sythe?"  Bryant  said  hastily,  trying  to  cover 
over  the  brutal  allusion  to  Donald's  lameness. 
"Let  me  see — two  spades." 

For  a  while  the  game  proceeded  in  apparent 
peace.  Yet  Nita  was  aware  that  the  tension 
was  increasing  moment  by  moment.  She  felt, 
rather  than  saw,  the  other  woman's  growing 
restlessness,  and  she  was  not  surprised  when 
between  two  deals  Elsie  asked  abruptly: 

"Have  you  seen  Uncle  Atkinson  lately, 
Donald?"  " 

The  question  sounded  innocent  enough;  but 
Nita  recognized  it  as  the  first  rumble  of  the 
coming  storm. 

Donald  thrust  out  his  lower  lip  in  a  funny 
little  grimace.  "I  had  that  pleasure  a  few 
days  ago.  One  no  trump." 

Elsie  was  not  to  be  turned  aside  so  easily, 
yet  she  still  evaded  the  direct  issue :  "How  is 
he?" 

"I  may  be  wrong,  but  in  my  humble  opinion 
he  possesses  vigor  enough  for  at  least  a  score 
of  tolerably  energetic  persons,"  replied  Donald 
rather  grimly.  "Your  bid." 

Had  Fate  not  been  against  him,  he  might 
have  succeeded  in  delaying  the  tempest  until 
they  two  were  alone  together ;  more  he  did  not 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR       223 

hope  to  accomplish.  He  could  not  prevent  the 
summoning  of  Ted  Bryant  on  the  "long  dis- 
tance" which  interrupted  the  game  and  left 
him  practically  defenseless.  The  closing  of 
the  door  seemed  to  shut  him  in,  a  prisoner. 

From  without  came  the  sound  of  laughing 
voices,  the  sweet  fragrance  of  the  summer 
night ;  but  not  one  of  the  three  who  sat  together 
about  the  green-topped  card  table  was  con- 
scious of  anything  save  the  presence  of  the 
other  two.  Through  Donald's  long  fingers  the 
cards  sifted  automatically,  over  and  over  again ; 
in  the  room  itself  this  soft  swish  of  card  against 
card  was  the  only  noise.  Nita's  nerves  were 
tingling;  every  muscle  drawn  taut,  she  sat 
erect,  instinctively  bracing  herself  for  the  com- 
ing attack.  The  light  from  the  chandelier 
above  caught  the  gold  threads  in  her  coiled 
hair,  turning  it  into  a  coronet;  her  finely  mod- 
eled throat,  pure  white  as  it  rose  from  the  filmy 
black  of  her  evening  gown,  her  small,  nobly 
carried  head,  were  those  of  a  young  Victory. 
Yet  never  in  her  life  had  she  felt  so  helpless. 

Elsie  was  not  clever  enough  to  finesse  suc- 
cessfully; moreover,  she  had  goaded  herself  on 
until  she  was  too  angry  even  to  try.  Suddenly 
she  leaned  forward,  resting  her  arms  on  the 


224     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

table;  her  little  hands  clasped  and  unclasped 
spasmodically. 

''Donald,  what  did  Uncle  Atkinson  say 
about  those  awful  articles  of  yours?" 

It  had  come  at  last.  Vaguely,  inconse- 
quently,  he  wondered  who  had  given  her  the 
specialized  information  out  of  which  that  ques- 
tion must  have  sprung,  certain  through  long 
experience  that  she  had  never  obtained  it  for 
herself.  Strange  that  no  one  had  done  it  be- 
fore. He  bent  his  lips  into  a  smile,  but  his 
eyes  were  somber: 

"My  dear  Elsie,  I  may  be  old-fashioned,  but 
in  the  presence  of  two  ladies  I  really  can  not 
repeat  what  my  extraordinarily  eloquent  uncle 
said!" 

Elsie  understood  the  hint  and  tried  to  sneer. 
"Oh,  you  needn't  remind  me  Nita's  in  the 
room!  I'll  bet  she's  known  all  about  this  hor- 
rid mess  you've  gotten  into  for  ever  so  long. 
She  wouldn't  tell  me  anything — oh,  no! 
Trust  her  for  that!  You  think  yourselves 
mighty  clever,  you  two,  don't  you,  treating  me 
like  a  child  and  ridiculing  my  friends  the  way 
you  did  Mr.  Frayne  just  now!  I'm  sick  and 
tired  of  being  watched  every  blessed  minute!" 

The  irritation  she  had  been  storing  up  and 


225 

brooding  over  for  months — ever  since  the  night 
when  Nita's  refusal  to  lie  to  Atkinson  Mat- 
thews had  first  aroused  her  resentment — had 
burst  out  like  some  fermenting  liquor.  But 
it  might  have  evaporated  harmlessly,  had  it 
not  been  for  Cuthbert  Frayne's  encourage- 
ment, above  all,  his  suggestion  of  Nita's  guard- 
ing care. 

Neither  of  the  two  against  whom  the  out- 
break was  directed  made  any  reply.  They 
had  in  truth  treated  her  as  the  childish,  irre- 
sponsible being  she  had  proved  herself,  was 
proving  herself  now.  Nita  sat  motionless,  her 
lips  compressed,  her  face  very  pale.  Donald's 
heavy  eyebrows  were  drawn  together ;  his  dark 
eyes  looked  almost  black;  and  they  never 
moved  from  his  wife's  angry  countenance. 

Elsie  had  only  paused  for  breath;  an  in- 
stant, and  she  resumed  her  tirade — all  the  more 
vehemently  because  she  was  already  fright- 
ened, quaking  at  her  own  recklessness,  half 
wishing  she  had  held  her  tongue. 

"Yes,  I  am — just  tired  and  sick  of  it  all! 
I  mean  what  I  say,  too!  You've  got  to  show 
me  some  consideration  whether  you  want  to  or 
not.  The  very  idea  of  your  making  Uncle 
Atkinson  mad  at  you,  when  you  know  per- 


226     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

fectly  well  I'd  never  have  dreamed  of  marry- 
ing you  if  I  hadn't  thought  he'd  die  soon  and 
leave  you  his  money!" 

"That  will  do,  Elsie,"  Donald  said  in  the 
stern  tone  she  heard  from  him  only  when  she 
had  exceeded  the  limits  of  his  almost  bound- 
less patience — the  tone  before  which  she  in- 
variably quailed.  "We'll  postpone  this  dis- 
cussion to  some  more  suitable  time." 

"That's  what  you  always  say!  I  tell  you 
I'm  not  a  child,  and  I  won't  be  treated  like  one 
—I  won't,  I  won't!  I'll  kill  myself,  I'll  kill 
myself,  I  tell  you — and  when  I'm  dead — then 
you'll  be  sorry — you're  a  nasty,  mean, 
cruel — " 

Sobs  choked  her.  She  gave  one  glance  at 
Donald's  rigid  face  and  ran  out  of  the  room 
and  through  the  crowded  hall  to  the  stairway, 
crying  unrestrainedly. 

He  did  not  move  to  follow  her;  for  experi- 
ence had  taught  him  that  after  one  of  these 
scenes,  with  their  shameless  stripping  away  of 
all  decencies,  all  reserves,  it  was  wisest  to  leave 
her  to  herself  awhile.  But  heretofore  they 
had  been  reserved  for  him  alone;  and  so  he 
was  newly  and  very  bitterly  ashamed.  There 
was  no  way  of  shielding  her,  no  possible  means 


ELSIE  DECLARES  WAR      227 

of  covering  up  the  unabashed  display  of  her- 
self which  she  had  made.  It  was  done ;  words 
were  useless;  only  his  shoulder  jerked,  and  his 
long  lean  fingers  played  mechanically  with  the 
scattered  cards. 

An  instant  later  Bryant  returned. 

"I'm  so  sorry,"  Nita  explained  quietly. 
"Elsie  has  a  headache  and  has  gone  up  to  bed." 

She  scarcely  heard  his  polite  regrets.  All 
her  thoughts  were  absorbed  by  that  which  she 
had  just  heard  and  seen. 

Presently  she  knew  Bryant  was  gone,  and 
that  Forsythe  had  arisen  and  stood  facing 
her. 

"So— it's  come." 

"Well,  she  was  sure  to  hear — " 

"Yes;  I'm  not  altogether  sorry.  Only  I 
wonder — "  He  broke  off;  an  instant  his  mis- 
ery-filled eyes  stared  at  her  blankly  before  he 
added  harshly:  "I  can't  give  up  this  one  thing!" 

For  her,  with  her  knowledge  old  and  new, 
that  brief  phrase  held  volumes;  all  the  anguish 
of  his  repeated  self-questionings,  all  his  en- 
deavors scrupulously  to  fulfill  every  claim  his 
marriage  made  upon  him,  all  his  disappoint- 
ment and  thwarted  hopes  echoed  in  and 
through  it.  And  with  this  understanding 


228     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

came  memory  of  the  hour  when  they  two  stood 
together  in  the  gray  dawn,  that  hour  and  all 
the  events  leading  up  to  it. 

Again  she  heard  his  steady  voice  telling  her 
of  the  cherished  purpose,  of  the  ten  years'  toil. 
He  had  foreseen  this  crisis  then,  and  then  as 
now  he  had  declared  he  would  not  yield. 

He  must  not,  should  not,  give  up  this  one 
thing  he  had  saved  out  of  the  wreck!  , 

"No,"  she  declared  emphatically.  "You've 
worked  too  long,  and" — intuition  leaped  to  her 
aid — "it's  too  late  now.  What's  done — is 
done." 

He  nodded.  "You're  right.  And  it 
wouldn't  be  dealing  squarely  with  Delvain. 
He's  a  mighty  decent  sort,  at  bottom — straight 
as  they  make  them." 

But  it  was  not  until  she  thought  it  over 
afterwards  that  she  grasped  the  full  meaning 
of  that  tribute,  and  realized  that  he  too  was 
gaining  through  experience,  winning  a  broader 
vision,  a  deeper,  truer  understanding. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  TURN   OF  THE  BALANCE 

NITA  found  herself  in  a  decidedly  unpleas- 
ant position.  For  Elsie,  appearing  late 
the  following  afternoon,  refreshed  by  a  long, 
sound  sleep  and  bearing  no  traces  of  her  re- 
cent hysterics — traces  there  were,  but  they 
showed  only  in  the  shadows  under  Donald's 
eyes — met  her  with  an  aggrieved  air  and  the 
stiffest  of  formal  salutations.  Had  they  not 
been  staying  in  the  same  house,  the  situation 
might  have  contained  elements  of  relief  for 
Nita,  a  certain  lifting  of  responsibilities.  As 
it  was,  the  daily  encounters  under  the  eyes  of 
half  a  hundred  more  or  less  gossip-loving 
women,  whose  curiosity,  long  since  aroused, 
had  been  on  the  qui  vive  from  the  moment 
Elsie  rushed  through  the  hall  in  tears,  were 
distinctly  disagreeable.  Nita  knew  her  world 
far  too  well  not  to  be  perfectly  aware  of  the 
kind  of  thing  that  was  being  said.  And  she 
could  not  defend  herself  by  word  or  deed,  for 


230     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

departure  would  have  taken  on  the  semblance 
of  flight. 

This  for  a  very  few  days ;  then  personal  mat- 
ters were  submerged  in  the  anxiety  with  which 
she  watched  the  incredibly  swift  gathering  and 
breaking  of  the  war  cloud.  Many  of  the  peo- 
ple caught  in  the  war  zone  were  acquaintances 
of  hers ;  some  of  them  were  her  friends.  Then 
came  the  President's  proclamation  of  neutral- 
ity, the  dread  of  panic,  the  closing  of  the  New 
York  Stock  Exchange,  and — keenly  felt  by 
patriotic  Nita,  in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of 
those  brave  men  and  women  who  founded 
colonies  and  built  a  nation — the  shame  of  the 
United  States'  failure  to  protest  against  the 
rape  of  Belgium. 

Her  business  had  recalled  her  to  New  York 
by  the  first  of  September,  and  full  as  her  days 
were  in  this,  her  busiest  season,  she  somehow 
found  time  to  take  a  course  in  First  Aid,  in  the 
preparing  of  bandages  and  the  dressing  of 
wounds.  For  she  was  one  of  those  who  be- 
lieved that  the  American  sense  of  justice  would 
soon  force  the  United  States  to  enter  the  con- 
flict. Subconsciously  she  welcomed  the  activ- 
ities which  crowded  her  waking  moments  and 
sent  her  to  bed  so  tired  that  her  sleep  was  in- 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  BALANCE  231 

slant  and  profound;  she  did  not  want  time  for 
introspection.  She,  who  had  never  before 
shrunk  from  confronting  her  own  mind  and 
heart,  now  felt  an  unacknowledged  dread  of 
both,  an  unacknowledged  wish  not  to  discover 
that  which  they  might  have  to  reveal. 

In  obedience  to  this  unacknowledged  wish, 
she  used  to  keep  her  thoughts  busy,  while  going 
from  place  to  place,  by  repeating  to  herself  the 
instructions  given  by  the  physician  in  charge 
of  the  First  Aid  class.  And  it  was  this  mental 
preoccupation  so  carefully  cultivated  which, 
although  she  never  knew  it,  turned  the  balance 
for  Rudolph  Drake — and  turned  it  forever. 

They  met  late  one  rainy  afternoon,  as  she 
was  hurrying  to  keep  an  appointment.  She 
was  trying  to  recall  the  exact  phrase  the  doctor 
had  used  and,  absorbed  in  the  hunt,  she  passed 
Drake  by  quite  unaware  of  his  proximity. 
But  he  believed  she  had  seen  and  deliberately 
avoided  greeting  him.  And  that  very  day  the 
firm  with  which  he  was  connected  had  col- 
lapsed like  a  house  of  cards.  And  he  knew  he 
could  not  face  the  impending  investigation. 

He  had  been  wandering  through  the  streets 
for  hours,  dazed,  numb  as  though  some  vital 
nerve  had  been  severed.  The  consciousness  of 


232     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

present  ruin  and  future  disgrace  had  held  him 
in  a  vice-like  grip  which  seemed  to  check  the 
very  current  of  his  blood.  His  legs  and  arms, 
his  feet  and  hands,  were  as  leaden  things  which 
did  not  belong  to  him.  His  mind  was  a  blank ; 
he  neither  felt  nor  thought  nor  suffered.  And 
then  he  met  Nita  Wynne,  and  she  walked  past 
him  with  head  erect. 

It  was  as  though  the  sight  of  this  woman 
who  to  him  was  the  living  embodiment  of  all 
that  was  sweet  and  high  and  noble — his  re- 
ligion, a  religion  in  which,  backslider  though  he 
was,  he  nevertheless  devoutly  believed — had 
been  the  one  thing  needed  to  rouse  him  from 
his  apathy.  The  merciful  numbness  passed; 
the  vice-like  grip  had  become  an  iron  cage. 
He  was  no  less  a  prisoner  than  before,  only  he 
had  become  conscious  of  the  bars,  could  dash 
himself  against  them.  And  now  his  mind  be- 
gan involuntarily  to  form  pictures — pictures 
that  moved  swiftly,  ruthlessly  across  the  screen 
of  his  quivering  consciousness. 

He  had  been  able  to  excuse  himself,  been 
able  to  condone  his  own  wrongdoing,  so  long  as 
it  remained  unknown.  And  he  had  meant 
only  to  borrow  the  money  in  order  to  satisfy 
the  claims  of  the  more  importunate  of  the  many 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  BALANCE  233 

creditors  now  clamoring  around  him,  thanks  to 
years  of  consistent  living  beyond  his  income. 
He  had  had  the  gambler's  faith  in  his  luck ;  the 
swing  of  the  financial  pendulum  would  surely 
carry  him  to  riches,  sooner  or  later.  Indeed, 
he  had  been  rich  more  than  once — on  paper. 
And  he  had  had  a  scheme  which  promised  great 
things.  But  for  the  outbreak  of  the  war  and 
consequent  closing  of  the  Exchange — 

A  newsboy  offered  him  a  paper  and  was 
answered  with  a  curse. 

He  felt  a  dull  surprise  at  finding  himself 
before  the  door  of  the  apartment  hotel  in  which 
he  lived.  He  suddenly  realized  that  he  was 
wet  to  the  skin  and  very  tired.  Then  he  re- 
membered with  a  dull  sort  of  relief  that  Ger- 
aldine  was  out  of  town  on  a  brief  visit.  Her 
questions,  her  solicitude,  would  have  been  as 
so  many  lashes  falling  upon  raw  wounds. 
There  was  nothing  she  could  give  that  he 
wanted — now. 

Curious  that  the  little  sitting  room  with  its 
gilt,  garland-patterned  Empire  furniture 
should  be  quite  unchanged!  How  cheap,  how 
futile  it  looked!  Well,  that  was  what  his  life 
had  been,  cheap  and  futile.  And  it  would  be 
— worse. 


234     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

To-morrow  probably,  in  a  very  few  days  at 
the  latest,  they  would  find  him  out.  He  would 
be  arrested,  he  supposed.  Then  he  would  have 
to  get  bail  somehow.  And  if  he  did?  What 
was  it  all  for,  anyway?  Cheap  and  futile. 

Oh,  what  a  fool  he  had  been !  What  a  fool ! 
What  a  fool! 

Ten  years  and  more  ago,  the  moment  of 
choice  had  come.  But  he  had  not  recognized 
it  for  what  it  was.  And  he  had  said  the  easy, 
the  expedient  thing,  taking  what  had  seemed 
to  him  an  opportunity.  Once  he  had  planned 
to  win  a  girl's  love  and  trust — win  them,  hold 
them,  deserve  them,  so  long  as  life  should  last. 
He  had  aspired ;  and  it  was  even  then  too  late. 

His  head  ached  and  throbbed.  In  his  tem- 
ples the  pulses  beat  hard  and  fast,  with  tiny, 
pitiless  hammer-strokes.  He  flung  himself 
down  on  the  frivolous  little  gilt  sofa,  and  sat 
staring  straight  before  him  with  eyes  which 
saw  nothing  save  the  wasted  years  slowly 
marching  past,  never  to  return. 

With  an  odd  sense  of  detachment,  he 
watched  his  phantom  self,  seeking  feverishly 
for  money  by  day,  seeking  feverishly  for 
pleasure  by  night.  Constant  excitement,  a 
half-conscious  struggle  to  fight  off  thought. 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  BALANCE  235 

Hanging  over  the  ticker,  hurrying  with  gay 
parties  from  theater  to  cabaret,  from  theater  to 
cabaret,  dancing,  drinking,  until  the  empty 
laughter  came  easily  from  his  hot  lips,  craving 
more  and  more  fiercely  the  stimulus  of  excite- 
ment and  of  alcohol  ...  or  worse.  What  of 
value,  what  of  happiness,  had  there  been  in  it 
all?  Cheap  and  futile! 

Well,  it  was  over  now,  the  old  way  of  life. 
And  that  which  was  to  take  its  place? 

He  shivered.  He  was  standing  in  the  dock, 
he  faced  the  jury,  he  was  conscious  of  hundreds 
of  curious,  merciless  eyes,  staring,  staring- 
God!  He  could  not  endure  it.  There  must 
be  some  way  out,  some  way  of  escape ! 

Escape?  To  be  hunted  down,  and  cap- 
tured, and  dragged  back. 

The  dark  waters  of  despair  rose  quickly; 
they  were  at  his  lips,  he  was  choking,  drown- 
ing— 

And  now  he  was  suddenly  aware  of  a  new 
presence  in  the  room.  Over  there  in  the 
shadowy  corner  it  crouched,  a  loathsome, 
shapeless  Thing.  It  moved;  it  was  coming 
nearer  to  him,  that  incarnate  Fear.  Nearer  it 
came;  and  nearer;  nearer  yet  .  .  . 

He  started  to  his  feet  with  a  strangled  cry; 


236     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

the  movement  awoke  him  from  his  trance. 
His  head  ached  and  throbbed.  He  must  rest, 
must  cease  thinking,  must  sleep,  else  he  would 
go  mad.  He  must  sleep;  must  sleep — 

He  felt  in  his  pocket  for  the  little  box  of 
white  powders,  so  precious,  so  difficult  to  pro- 
cure. For  several  nerve-racking  months  there 
had  been  no  sleep  for  him  without  drugs.  His 
fingers  closed  over  the  box;  he  drew  it  forth 
and  switched  on  the  light. 

The  sudden  glare  stung  his  burning  eye- 
balls ;  but  without  light  he  might  take  an  over- 
dose and  find,  not  sleep,  but  death. 

Death. 

The  thought  touched  him  like  a  gentle  hand. 
What  good  was  life  to  him?  Cheap  and  futile 
in  the  past;  in  the  years  to  come —  A  trial 
and  prison — he  shivered.  He  was  afraid  to 
live.  . 

A  coward;  yes,  he  was  a  coward.  No  won- 
der Nita  had  refused  to  notice  him!  And 
after  to-morrow — when  he  stood  before  the 
world  a  convicted  thief — 

Here  it  was  in  his  hand,  the  means  of  escape 
and  rest —  Deliberately,  mechanically,  he 
went  to  the  carafe  standing  on  a  side  table  and 
measured  the  proper  amount  of  water  into  a 


THE  TURN  OF  THE  BALANCE  237 

tumbler.  He  must  be  careful  to  take  neither 
too  much  nor  too  little.  It  was  with  a  feeling 
of  security  such  as  he  had  not  known  for  years 
that  he  raised  the  glass  to  his  lips. 

It  was  done.  He  had  passed  out  of  the 
world  of  living  men.  A  few  moments  of  con- 
sciousness were  all  that  were  left  him. 

And  now  a  sudden,  overpowering  desire 
wrung  his  very  heartstrings — a  longing  for  the 
sound  of  Nita's  voice,  for  the  sight  of  Nita's 
face.  The  love  which  had  drawn  to  and  in- 
corporated within  itself  all  that  was  best  in 
him,  the  love  which  he  had  cherished  in  his  heart 
as  an  ideal,  disregarded  often  but  never  absent, 
rose  up  now  in  its  might,  sweeping  shame  and 
regret  and  fear  aside,  dominating  this  ultimate 
moment,  claiming  expression.  He  must 
speak  to  her,  must  tell  her  somehow  that  al- 
ways, always  .... 

Making  his  difficult  way  to  the  flimsy  little 
rose-painted  desk  he  found  a  sheet  of  Ger- 
aldine's  scented,  pink-tinted  notepaper,  and 
began  to  write. 

At  first  the  pen  moved  rapidly.  Then 
drowsiness  began  to  dull  his  senses.  The  pen 
slipped,  blotting  the  paper;  the  poison  was  at 
work.  His  hand  faltered  and  stopped;  and 


238     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

went  on  again,  slowly — and  yet  more  slowly — 
He  sank  forward  over  the  rose-painted  desk, 
amid  the  dainty  silver  and  crystal  appoint- 
ments with  which  it  was  strewn  . 


CHAPTER  XVI 

"NOTHING  MATTERS  ANY  MORE" 

DRAKE'S  suicide  was  something  of  a 
shock  to  Nita.  Memory  brought  back 
the  debonair  young  man  she  had  regarded  as 
a  veritable  knight  of  romance ;  imagination  pic- 
tured him  lying  dead,  there  in  the  frivolous 
little  hotel  room.  But  she  was  a  different  per- 
son from  the  crude  young  idealist  who  had 
made  of  handsome,  weak-fibered  Rudolph 
Drake  an  impossibly  immaculate  hero.  All 
that  past  in  which  he  had  played  so  prominent 
a  part  was  over  and  done  with;  she  looked  at 
it  from  across  a  gulf  of  hard-working,  thought- 
crowded  years,  looked  at  it  compassionately, 
with  a  better,  clearer  understanding  alike  of 
herself  and  of  him,  but  as  if  from  a  great  dis- 
tance. And  the  Rudolph  Drake  she  had  occa- 
sionally met  during  recent  years  had  seemed 
to  her  a  complete  materialist,  one  whose  only 
desire  and  creed  was  to  eat,  drink,  and  be 
merry.  And  for  all  her  better  understanding, 


240     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

her  wider  vision,  this  was  a  type  for  which  she 
had  no  use  and  but  slight  sympathy. 

The  theft  which  had  been  the  propelling 
cause  of  his  suicide  was  carefully  hushed  up, 
and  it  was  generally  believed  to  be  the  result 
of  a  nervous  breakdown  due  to  overwork.  He 
had  once  taken  some  shares  of  a  motor-boat 
stock  in  payment  of  a  bad  debt,  and  that  stock, 
suddenly  developing  into  one  of  those  "war 
babies"  which  brought  unexpected  riches  to 
their  owners,  made  it  possible  to  cover  up  his 
peculations.  But  all  this  happened  later,  and 
at  first  it  was  only  known  that  he  had  left  little 
or  no  money — a  fact  of  which  Nita's  step- 
mother presently  informed  her. 

"It  serves  Geraldine  right,"  she  declared 
with  that  air  of  perfect  rectitude  possible  only 
to  those  conscious  of  possessing  an  assured  in- 
come. "She  spent  money  like  water.  / 
never  could  afford  to  dress  as  she  did — always 
in  the  very  latest  fashion.  No  wonder  poor 
dear  Rudolph  killed  himself  with  overwork!" 

"I  understood  from  Elsie  that  he  was  mak- 
ing a  great  deal  of  money,"  Nita  said,  remem- 
bering the  younger  sister's  oft-reiterated  envy 
of  Geraldine's  gowns  and  hats  and  generally 
lavish  expenditure.  But  she  could  not  help 


"  NOTHING  MATTERS  "       241 

smiling  a  little  at  the  former  Mrs.  Ashurst's 
righteous  indignation. 

"Hu-umph!  Elsie!"  Mrs.  Wynne's  ex- 
clamation was  an  unreproducible  mixture  of 
snort  and  sniff.  "Elsie's  a  perfect  little  fool. 
By  the  way,  I  hear  she's  running  around  with 
that  man  Frayne.  She'll  get  herself  into  a 
bad  scrape  one  of  these  days,  see  if  she  doesn't," 
she  added  hopefully.  Gossip  was  now  her 
main  interest  in  life. 

"Oh,  she  likes  to  flirt,  but  there  isn't  a  bit 
of  harm  in  her;  it's  just  play." 

Nita  spoke  carelessly,  but  during  the  next 
few  days  her  stepmother's  hint  often  recurred 
to  her.  There  might  be,  probably  was, 
scarcely  any  foundation  for  the  gossip,  and 
yet —  Well,  whether  or  not  one  admired 
Cuthbert  Frayne,  he  was  not  a  person  to  be 
lightly  dismissed!  She  felt  anxious,  and  she 
might  have  gone  to  Elsie  and  tried  to  close  the 
breach  between  them,  had  she  not  known  the 
uselessness  of  any  such  attempt.  Elsie  would 
have  taken  it  merely  as  justifying  her  own 
course;  if  she  were  ever  again  to  have  any  in- 
fluence over  her,  it  was  from  Elsie's  self  that 
the  first  movement  toward  reconciliation  must 
come. 


And  then  something  happened  which  for  a 
time  drove  all  else  from  her  mind. 

She  had  returned  from  a  meeting  of  one  of 
the  Belgian  Relief  committees  late  one  after- 
noon, and  with  her  hat  still  on,  was  standing 
by  the  table  in  her  sitting  room,  glancing  with 
characteristic  rapidity  over  the  little  pile  of  let- 
ters delivered  during  her  absence.  Her  sim- 
ple gown  of  gray-blue  silk  with  Vandyck  collar 
and  cuffs  of  Brussels  point  clung  closely  to 
her  slender,  supple  figure.  Under  the  shadow 
of  her  broad-brimmed  hat  with  its  single 
sweeping  plume,  her  eyes  seemed  more  than 
ever  luminous,  her  profile  more  clearly,  de- 
cisively cut.  The  proud  carriage  of  the  small 
head,  the  buoyant  poise  of  the  graceful  body, 
the  swift  movements  of  the  delicate  hands,  all 
contributed  something  to  the  general  effect  of 
alertness,  of  a  readiness  to  be  up  and  doing,  off 
and  away.  More  than  ever  now,  in  these  days 
when  her  abilities  and  her  sympathies  alike 
were  responding  generously  to  the  many  de- 
mands made  upon  them,  did  she  seem  intensely, 
gloriously  alive,  so  alive  that  beside  her  the  ma- 
jority of  people  appeared  half  moribund. 
Dynamic,  full  of  energy  and  vitality,  she  re- 
sembled some  radiant  spirit  of  light — 


"  NOTHING  MATTERS  "        243 

The  electric  bell  rang  sharply,  and  Nita 
glanced  away  from  her  letters,  a  slight  frown 
wrinkling  her  smooth  white  brow.  She  had 
given  strict  orders  to  telephone  up  the  name  of 
every  caller,  but  the  new  elevator  boy  was 
stupid.  She  turned  to  the  open  door. 

On  the  threshold  stood  a  black-veiled,  black- 
robed  figure — one  she  had  never  thought  to  see 
there.  Her  heart  was  beating  quickly  as  she 
silently  ushered  Geraldine  into  the  room. 

And  yet — was  it  really  Geraldine?  For  as 
her  unexpected  guest  flung  back  the  long  crape 
veil  which  had  enshrouded  face  and  form, 
Nita  could  not  help  starting  a  little.  That 
bloodless  face  in  which  the  once  bold  eyes 
looked  so  unnaturally  large,  thin,  with  sunken 
temples  and  gray  lips — could  it  in  truth  be 
Geraldine's?  Her  pity,  more  than  her  sur- 
prise, held  Nita  dumb. 

A  long  moment  the  two  women  stood  silent, 
staring  at  each  other  as  though  neither  had 
ever  actually  seen  the  other  before.  All  the 
life  in  Geraldine's  worn  body  seemed  concen- 
trated in  her  resolute,  burning  eyes.  And  still 
she  gazed  steadily,  searchingly  at  Nita,  stand- 
ing there  so  slight  and  supple,  so  tense  and 
vivid  and  electric. 


244     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"You  did  not  expect  to  see  me  here."  Ger- 
aldine's  voice  was  very  low ;  the  words  dragged 
as  though  speech  were  an  almost  intolerable 
effort. 

"No:  you  have  something  to  tell  me."  It 
was  a  statement,  not  a  question. 

Just  perceptibly,  the  other  woman  winced; 
it  was  as  if  some  overstrung  nerve  quivered 
painfully  to  the  vibrations  of  that  crystal-clear 
voice. 

"And  yet,"  she  murmured,  apparently 
speaking  to  herself,  "and  yet — you're  not 
really — so  beautiful.  I  don't — understand." 

A  sigh  of  utter  weariness  stole  through  the 
gray  lips,  and  Nita  pushed  forward  an  arm- 
chair. Geraldine  sank  into  it,  and  Nita 
waited,  waited  with  tingling  nerves — 

Presently  the  tired  voice  was  heard 
again : 

"I  found  Rudolph's  body.  I  got  home  that 
night.  But  I  had  come  too  late.  He  was 
dead." 

Tearlessly,  steadily,  without  break  or  quiver 
were  those  words  spoken.  And  yet  Nita 
shrank  back  aghast,  as  from  a  crater  suddenly 
yawning  open  before  her.  Every  other  feel- 
ing was  lost  in  pity ;  pity,  not  for  the  man  who 


'  NOTHING  MATTERS  "       245 

had  fled  out  of  life,  but  for  the  woman  she  had 
long  despised. 

And  again  the  weary  voice,  inflectionless, 
without  touch  of  color  or  emotion,  went  stead- 
ily on: 

"This  was  lying  under  his  hand.  He  had 
written  it  at  the  last — when  he  was — dy- 
ing." 

Out  of  the  little  black  bag  on  her  wrist  she 
took  a  sheet  of  scented,  pink-tinted  notepaper 
and  unfolded  it  carefully,  looking  at  it  with 
dry  eyes,  holding  it  in  fingers  that  did  not 
tremble. 

It  was  Nita  who  trembled :  the  flooding  pity 
was  becoming  an  anguish. 

For  a  moment  there  was  silence.  A  long 
shaft  of  sunlight,  stealing  through  the  western 
window,  rested  softly  on  Geraldine's  black 
draperies. 

Then  Drake's  widow  held  out  the  little  sheet 
of  paper.  "He  wrote — to  you.  So  I  have 
brought  you — this.  He  wanted — " 

Weary  tone,  dragging  words,  expressed 
only  a  great  fatigue ;  but  the  rare  tears  rose  to 
Nita's  eyes,  blinding  her  so  that  she  could 
scarcely  read  the  scrawled,  incoherent  phrases. 
She  saw  her  own  name  repeated  again  and 


246     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

again:  "Nita — Nita!  I  love  you — I've  al- 
ways loved  you — forgive  .  .  ." 

And  she  flung  out  her  hands  to  Drake's  wife, 
and  the  message  Drake  had  scrawled  in  his  last 
conscious  moments  fluttered  to  the  ground. 

"I'm  sorry!"  she  cried,  her  voice  breaking. 
"I'm  very,  very  sorry!" 

Her  own  words  rang  in  her  ears,  useless,  in- 
adequate— but  what  was  there  to  say?  And 
suddenly  she  was  swept  back  through  the 
years;  she  was  one  of  a  multi-colored  throng 
of  dancers;  past  her  glided  Geraldine  on  the 
arm  of  Rudolph  Drake,  she  very  pale,  he 
flushed,  preoccupied — 

And  the  bit  of  paper,  by  means  of  which  a 
wrecked  and  broken  man  had  striven  to  reach 
the  woman  he  loved  with  a  love  that  remained 
when  all  else  crumbled  away  before  on-coming 
death,  lay  upon  the  floor  unnoticed.  For  the 
agony  of  the  living  was  the  greater,  and  had 
blotted  out  the  agony  of  the  dead. 

Then  for  the  first  time  Geraldine's  masklike 
face  changed  a  little,  and  though  when  she 
spoke  the  words  still  dragged,  a  faint  hint  of 
relief,  a  faint  hint  of  surprise  tinged  the  color- 
less tone  as  she  said  slowly,  with  the  accent  of 
one  who  accepts  as  true  that  which  had  for- 


"  NOTHING  MATTERS  "       247 

merly  seemed  unbelievable:  "You  never 
loved  him." 

And  she  stooped  and  picked  up  the  fallen 
paper,  smoothing  it  out  gently. 

The  strain  of  this  interview  was  racking 
sensitive,  impressionable  Nita.  But  with  an 
effort  of  her  strong  will  she  controlled  her  shiv- 
ering nerves  and  said  quietly:  "What  do  you 
mean?  Why  did  you  come  here  and  bring  me 
— that — yourself?  I  don't  understand." 

She  made  a  little  gesture  toward  the  paper 
in  Geraldine's  hand  as  she  unconsciously 
echoed  Geraldine's  phrase.  And  presently 
Rudolph  Drake's  widow  looked  up,  and 
spoke : 

"No,  you  don't  understand,"  she  said  very 
slowly.  "And  yet — and  yet  the  truth  is  here." 
She  touched  the  paper  tenderly.  "He  loved 
you.  I  knew  it — always.  Oh,  he  cared  for 
me  too — in  a  way.  A  man  can  love  two 
women,  but — differently.  He  gave  you  his 
best,  and  I — I  took  what  I  could  get.  You 
drew  out  all  that  was  finest  in  him,  somehow. 
I  never  could  learn  your  secret,  and  so —  It 
was  only  what  was  left  that  I  could  touch,  his 
lower,  weaker — the  rest  was  gone,  out  of  my 
reach.  And  yet  you  never  loved  him.  I 


248     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

might  have  known —  But  I  was  afraid,  I  was 
— afraid" — the  word  came  shuddering  from 
the  bloodless  lips.  "I  realized  from  the  very 
first  what — what  kind  of  love  it  was  he  gave 
me.  And  when  I  saw  him  lying  dead,  I 
thought  perhaps  if  I  hadn't  taken  it — hadn't 
worked  to  get  it — he  might  have  had  the  happi- 
ness he  wanted — some  day.  I  could  only — 
satisfy  what  was — worst  in  him.  And  so  I 
tried  to  make  that — the  larger  part.  I  know 
now  what  I  did  to  him.  But  since  there  never 
could  have  been  anything  else,  anything — dif- 
ferent, since  you  did  not  love — "  She  paused 
and  drew  a  long,  full  breath.  "I  can  keep 
sane — now,"  she  said. 

Nita  could  not  speak. 

And  after  a  while  Geraldine  went  on  in  a 
monotonous,  inflectionless  tone — the  tone  of  a 
sleepwalker: 

"He  wasn't  all  mine,"  she  said  dully,  "he 
wasn't  all  mine — ever.  Not  even — dead.  I 
used  to  think  sometimes  how  you'd  gloat  over 
it  all — and  me — if  you  knew.  When  I  found 
that  paper,  I  tried  to  burn  it,  but  I — I  couldn't. 
Then  I  saw  how  it  might  help  me  to  learn — 
what  I  had  to  know.  My  humiliation,  your 
triumph — just  didn't  count  any  more.  That's 


"  NOTHING  MATTERS  "       249 

why  I  came,  to  find  out  whether  you  cared. 
Now — I'm  satisfied." 

The  broken,  monotonous  speech  ended. 
And  minutes  sped  while  the  woman  Rudolph 
Drake  had  loved  and  the  woman  who  had  loved 
him  sat  gazing  at  each  other. 

For  Nita  was  stricken  dumb.  After  one 
horrified  gesture  of  repudiation  when  Geral- 
dine  had  spoken  of  her  as  "gloating"  over  her 
unhappiness,  she  sat  motionless.  She  scarcely 
dared  even  to  pity  the  woman  who  faced  her, 
so  calm  in  the  majesty  of  her  great  grief. 
This  sorrow  was  immeasurable,  beyond  sympa- 
thy as  it  was  beyond  tears.  Compared  with  it, 
every  emotion  she  herself  had  ever  known 
seemed  dwarfed  into  insignificance.  A  won- 
der that  was  akin  to  awe  possessed  her. 
Surely  such  agony  implied  a  depth  and  a  great- 
ness of  character —  Could  she,  who  had  once 
deemed  herself  Geraldine's  superior,  ever  feel 
pain  like  this?  The  power  so  to  love  and  to 
suffer — 

The  small  old-fashioned  clock  upon  the 
mantel  shelf  ticked  on  inexorably.  The  ray  of 
sunlight  had  shifted;  it  no  longer  caressed  the 
black-robed  figure  but  settled  happily  on 
Nita's  slender  form,  which  now  seemed  to  draw 


250     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

to  itself,  magnet-wise,  all  the  surrounding  light 
and  color.  And  still  the  silence  remained  un- 
broken in  that  quiet  room  where  the  very  air 
was  tense,  vibrating  yet  to  those  monotonously 
spoken  words  which  had  expressed  a  boundless 
passion,  a  passion  which  had  absorbed  a 
woman's  whole  nature,  been  in  very  truth  her 
life.  Nita  felt  the  strain,  the  steady,  search- 
ing gaze  of  those  haggard  eyes,  becoming  un- 
endurable. 

"Good-by."  Geraldine  rose  abruptly,  draw- 
ing the  thick  veil  over  her  face.  Her  purpose 
was  accomplished. 

And  then  at  last  Nita  spoke.  And  still  it 
was  of  the  living  that  she  was  thinking  far 
more  than  of  the  dead. 

"I  didn't  want  to  take  or  to  keep  anything 
from  you,"  she  said  earnestly.  "I  didn't  know 
I  was — keeping  anything  from  you.  It 
seemed  all  over  and  forgotten." 

The  other  woman,  who  was  already  moving 
slowly  toward  the  door,  paused  a  moment. 

"Yes,  I  know,"  she  said  at  last.  The  faint 
touch  of  emotion  was  gone  from  her  voice, 
leaving  it  as  toneless,  as  utterly  weary  and 
drained  of  all  feeling  as  it  had  been  at  first. 
"Such  things — just  happen.  In  the  very  be- 


'  NOTHING  MATTERS  "        251 

ginning,  before  people  said  you  were  engaged 
to  him,  I  believed  you'd  taken  him  from  me— 
for  your  amusement.     I  thought  that  a  long 
time.     I  used  to  hate  you.     I  wish  I  could  hate 
you  still.     But  nothing  matters  any  more." 

The  door  closed  behind  her. 

Automatically  Nita  went  to  the  window  and 
flung  herself  down  in  her  favorite  place  among 
the  heaped  golden-brown  cushions.  She  felt 
as  though  the  monotonous  tones  of  that  tired 
voice  would  never  cease  to  echo  in  her  ears. 
"Nothing  matters  any  more."  The  weary, 
dragging  words  came  again  and  yet  again. 
"Nothing  matters  any  more." 

And  she  knew  that  the  brief  sentence  held  a 
complete  truth.  For  there  was  one  woman  in 
the  world  whose  heart  was  broken,  one  woman 
to  whom  nothing  mattered  any  more,  now  Ru- 
dolph Drake  was  dead. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BEVELATION 

FOR  a  while  the  memory  of  Geraldine  and 
the  things  Geraldine  had  said  fairly 
haunted  Nita.  Busy  as  she  was  in  that  outer 
world  where  efforts  to  mitigate  the  horror  once 
deemed  impossible  now  held  imperious  sway, 
the  inner  realm  of  her  thoughts  had  space  and 
to  spare  for  her  own  past,  her  own  trial  and 
judgment.  Dim,  dusty  recollections  were 
dragged  forward  into  the  light,  and  with  the 
appearance  of  each,  the  severity  of  her  self- 
questioning  increased.  A  great  doubt  pos- 
sessed her:  Had  she  failed  Rudolph  Drake  in 
his  hour  of  need,  and  so  failing  him  become  in 
some  measure  responsible  for  the  final 
tragedy? 

The  break  had  been  inevitable.  She  could 
not  have  married  him,  knowing  what  she  did 
and  being  what  she  was.  But  had  she  been 
gentler,  less  unsparing  in  her  condemnation 
then — and  since — ? 


REVELATION  253 

For  he  had  given  her  his  best ;  all  that  was  in 
him  of  gold.  Gold  smothered  in  dross  and  in 
meaner  than  dross,  but  gold  nevertheless. 

He  had  given  his  best  to  her,  his  worst — and 
she  faced  quite  frankly  her  knowledge  of  what 
that  worst  must  have  been — to  the  woman  who 
had  yielded  her  all  to  him,  surrendering  her 
heart  and  soul,  her  very  self,  so  completely  that 
now  when  he  was  gone  she  had  nothing  left; 
neither  love  nor  hate,  pride  nor  hope:  nothing 
.  .  .  save  the  power  to  suffer. 

Never  would  Nita  forget  that  during  long 
years  she  had  held  Drake's  wife  very  cheaply, 
judging  wholly  by  appearances  and  from  the 
outside,  blind  to  the  truth  that  from  thence  no 
real  understanding  is  possible.  Seeing  at  first 
only  the  surface  littlenesses  and  imperfections, 
she  had  taken  them  for  the  whole ;  now  rushing, 
generous  and  remorseful,  to  the  other  extreme, 
she  tried  to  ignore  them  altogether.  She  had 
learned  a  lesson,  been  humbled  in  her  own  eyes, 
she  who  was  once  so  sure  of  herself,  so  prone  to 
see  character  and  conduct  as  all  black  or  all 
white.  And  again  she  remembered  Donald's 
words:  "Tolerance  is  an  acquired  virtue- 
else  it  isn't  a  virtue  at  all.  It  must  come 
from  understanding" — understanding  ob- 


254     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

tained    through    experience,    and    none    too 
easily! 

This  inner  enlightenment,  together  with  her 
unflagging  energy,  made  her  one  of  the  most 
efficient  as  well  as  one  of  the  hardest  workers 
on  the  Relief  Committee.  For  her  ardent  par- 
tisanship, her  tendency  to  rebel  rather  than  to 
submit,  were  no  whit  diminished.  Often  they 
stood  her  in  good  stead,  sometimes  they  re- 
sulted only  in  mental  turmoil.  It  was  no  use, 
for  instance,  to  rage  inwardly  because,  with  the 
coming  of  the  Great  War,  Donald  Forsythe's 
series  of  articles  was  brought  to  an  abrupt 
close  by  the  politic  Delvain.  It  was  one  of  the 
minor  wrecks  which  the  mere  shadow  of  Jug- 
gernaut's car  had  sufficed  to  bring  about.  Ten 
years'  labor,  ten  years'  planning  and  persist- 
ence, ten  years'  holding  fast  to  one  purpose 
despite  all  objections  and  obstacles  and  dis- 
couragements— and  then,  in  the  very  moment 
of  accomplishment,  a  catastrophe  utterly  un- 
foreseeable destroyed  it  all  in  an  instant!  He 
had  declared  proudly:  "What  I  owe,  I  pay," 
and  the  power  to  pay  had  been  taken  out  of  his 
hands  just  as  he  was  in  the  act  of  settling  his 
debt.  Oh,  but  it  was  cruel,  unjust  to  rob  him 
of  that  one  thing  to  which  he  had  clung  so  des- 


REVELATION  255 

perately !  cried  Nita  in  the  depths  of  her  pas- 
sionate soul. 

It  was  no  surprise  to  her  when  Forsythe  ap- 
peared at  the  Headquarters,  no  surprise  to  find 
herself  frequently  working  side  by  side  with 
him.  Little  as  they  had  seen  of  each  other 
since  Elsie's  outbreak  at  East  Hampton,  they 
immediately  and  without  effort  slipped  again 
into  the  comfortable  grooves  of  their  former 
relations.  Speech  and  silence  had  always  been 
easy  between  them, .  untroubled  save  when 
thought  of  Elsie  intervened.  And  now,  when 
both  were  busy,  hand  and  brain  alike,  with  un- 
selfish work  and  unselfish  problems,  a  tacit 
avoidance  of  merely  personal  matters,  of  Elsie, 
and  of  the  difficult  guardianship  they  had  once 
shared,  though  unequally,  was  very  simple. 
For  the  victims  of  a  nation  ran  amuck,  they 
toiled,  two  among  a  great  Fellowship  of  the 
Compassionate. 

And  then,  all  in  an  instant,  the  thunderbolt 
struck. 

It  was  late  April,  and  an  unusually  severe 
heat-wave  had  been  suddenly  followed  by  a 
cold  snap.  Now  that  it  was  nearly  six  o'clock, 
the  wind  was  cool  enough  to  make  fast  walking 
not  only  pleasant,  but  necessary  if  one  chanced 


256     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

to  be  wearing  thin  clothing.  Donald  and 
Nita,  coming  from  a  sub-committee  meeting  at 
Mrs.  Cavanagh's,  both  felt  the  want  of  air  and 
exercise  and  together  swung  along  down  Fifth 
Avenue,  she  with  her  light  buoyant  step,  he 
with  that  quick  limping  stride  of  his  to  which 
she  had  long  since  become  accustomed. 

For  a  while  they  went  on  in  an  uncon- 
strained, companionable  silence,  each  finding  a 
rest  for  tired  brain  and  rasped  nerves  in  the 
other's  mere  presence.  And  the  tempers  of 
both  had  been  sorely  tried  that  afternoon  by  a 
speaker  who,  having  been  invited  to  talk  about 
one  subject,  had  insisted  on  discoursing  upon 
another  and  very  different  one. 

It  was  Donald  who  suddenly  exclaimed,  al- 
most explosively :  "I  don't  know  which  I  hate 
the  most — a  neutral  or  a  pacifist!" 

Nita  gave  a  quick  little  shrug.  "One's  a 
liar — the  other  may  not  be  that,  at  any  rate." 

He  assented  with  a  nod.  "You're  right. 
Honest  neutrality  at  a  time  like  this — it  isn't 
possible  except  for  a  cad,  a  coward,  or  an  ego- 


maniac.*' 


"And  then  they  actually  have  the  nerve  to 
adopt  a  'holier  than  thou'  attitude,  and  prate 
about  their  liberality,  and  wide  sympathies, 


REVELATION  257 

and  loving  kindness!"  Nita  declared  indig- 
nantly. 

"It's  mighty  easy  to  misapply  names,  and 
call  'broad-mindedness'  and  'brotherly  love' 
what  is  really  nothing  but  a  lack  of  moral  back- 
bone— make  it  an  excuse  for  doing  the  easy 
instead  of  the  difficult  thing.  Sometimes,  I 
suppose,  it's  honest  self-deception;  but  more 
often  it's  nothing  but  sheer  rank  hypocrisy." 

"Well,  our  pacifist  friend  was  sincere,  at 
least,  even  if  he  did  talk  a  string  of  pretty  ab- 
surdities and  want  to  turn  the  earth  over  to 
the  thugs  and  thieves  and  cutthroats !" 

"Yes,  and  the  queer  part  of  it  is,  he  seems  to 
imagine  that  all  men  who  don't  agree  with  him 
must  have  a  hankering  to  become  thieves  and 
cutthroats  themselves."  He  paused  an  in- 
stant and  then,  his  equanimity  restored,  went 
on  in  his  usual  half -whimsical  tone  and  man- 
ner: "Should  yonder  eminently  respectable- 
looking  citizen  suddenly  evince  an  uncontrol- 
lable desire  to  throttle  the  life  out  of  me,  I'd 
certainly  do  my  best  to  disappoint  him,  and  if  I 
happened  to  injure  him  seriously  in  the 
process,  I  wouldn't  regard  it  as  my  bounden 
duty  to  expire  either  with  remorse  or  melan- 
cholia. Which  doesn't  imply  that  I  have  any 


258     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

designs  on  his  windpipe,  so  long  as  he  treats 
mine  with  all  due  and  proper  respect." 

"The  difference  seems  to  escape  our  pacifist 
friends  entirely.  Carried  out  to  a  logical  con- 
clusion, their  theory  would  do  away  with  all 
locks  and  police  and  a  number  of  other  things 
necessary  at  the  present  stage  of  civilization, 
and  let  the  enterprising  burglar  burgle  at  his 
own  sweet  will."  Her  tone  changed,  and  she 
added  seriously:  "It's  as  though  they  had  a 
blind  spot — or  a  sort  of  mental  paralysis 
brought  on  by  horror.  I  suppose  if  we  real- 
ized— truly  realized,  any  of  us,  all  that's  actu- 
ally going  on  over  there  now,  at  this  very  mo- 
ment— "  She  caught  her  breath. 

"We'd  go  mad."  For  once  it  was  he  who 
finished  her  sentence. 

"It  isn't — safe — to  stop  and  think."  Her 
clear  voice  was  very  low. 

"We  may  be  obliged  to  stop  and  think.  If 
the  Lusitania — Devlin  Morris  has  had  one  of 
those  anonymous  warning  letters." 

"Is  he  going  to  pay  any  attention — ?" 

"No;  he  sails  to-morrow  just  the  same,  and 
so  does  Geraldine.  She's  going  to  join  Phoebe 
in  Devonshire." 

The  Englishman  Phoebe  Haight  had  mar- 


REVELATION  259 

ried  was  now  with  his  regiment  "somewhere  in 
France." 

"But  surely  there  are  limits  even  to  what  the 
Huns  will  do!  Besides,  they  must  know  it 
would  mean  war  with  the  United  States. 
We've  stood  a  lot,  but  when  it  comes  to  letting 
them  murder  our  own  people — that's  just  a 
little  too  much!" 

"I  should  hope  so!  But  they're  insane — 
vanity-mad,  blood-mad.  And  we — we  sit 
quiet  and  endure  and  gabble  about  'friendly 
relations!'  If  we'd  only  spoken  out  when 
Belgium  was  invaded — said  to  Germany: 
"You  shan't  do  this  thing" — think  where 
America  would  stand  to-day  in  the  eyes  of  the 
nations!" 

"It  might  have  flung  us  into  the  war,"  Nita 
answered,  with  head  held  high  and  kindling 
eyes.  "We  might  have  lost  some  of  our 
'safety'  and  'prosperity,'  but  we'd  have  saved 
our  souls!" 

"And  it  might  have  prevented  the  war  1  If 
the  other  neutral  nations  had  followed  our 
lead,  and  I  believe  that's  what  they  would  have 
done—" 

"At  least  we'd  have  had  a  right  to  talk  then 
about  ideals  and  standing  for  humanity!" 


260     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

His  shoulder  jerked  with  the  quick,  invol- 
untary movement  she  knew  so  well. 

1  'People  tell  us  it  wasn't  any  of  our  business. 
Our  business!  We  despise  the  man  who 
doesn't  go  to  the  help  of  a  woman  or  a  child  in 
danger,  whether  he's  ever  seen  them  before  or 
not.  And  then  we  try  to  excuse  what  amounts 
to  national  instead  of  mere  personal  cowardice 
by  chattering  about  'our  business!'  We  let 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  women  and  chil- 
dren be  tortured  and  killed  and — and  worse— 
without  lifting  a  finger  to  save  them,  because 
years  ago,  in  what  was  practically  a  different 
world,  we  didn't  sign  one  particular  treaty, 
and  so  it  isn't  any  of  'our  business!'  Our — " 
His  voice  snapped.  "Heaven  knows  I've  no 
right  to  talk!"  It  was  as  though  some  force 
which  had  broken  from  his  control  were  driv- 
ing the  words  out.  "I'm  a  cripple — not  a 
man.  God!  If  I  could  only  go — and  help!" 

A  part  of  the  enveloping  cloak  had  fallen. 
For  the  first  time  in  all  his  life  he  had  per- 
mitted another  human  being  to  see  something 
of  what  his  lameness  really  meant  to  him — that 
lameness  he  usually  treated  so  lightly,  so  non- 
chalantly, speaking  of  it  as  though  it  were  a 
thing  rather  amusing  than  otherwise. 


REVELATION  261 

And  Nita  understood — understood  the  chaf- 
ing of  the  present,  the  heavy  burden  so  gayly 
and  gallantly  borne  in  the  past.  His  rebel- 
lion, his  pain  were  hers.  And  because  she  felt 
with  him,  not  merely  for  him,  she  could  not 
utter  a  word.  Only  in  the  semi-darkness  of 
the  almost  empty  Avenue  she  touched  his  hand 
with  her  gloved  fingers. 

He  gripped  them  fast;  and  it  was  as  though 
an  electric  shock  had  passed  up  her  arm.  An 
instant  the  lights  danced  before  her  eyes. 
And  then — then  she  saw  his  face,  illumined  by 
the  glare  from  a  show  window. 

It  might  have  been  a  moment,  it  might,  for 
all  she  knew,  have  been  an  hour  before  he 
turned  to  her,  slowly,  with  a  resolute  control  of 
movement  and  of  tone,  and  said  "Thank  you" 
very  quietly. 

But  though  he  spoke  so  calmly,  he  was  pale 
even  to  the  lips.  For  he  had  realized  the  full 
meaning  of  his  self -revelation ;  and  with  the 
knowledge  there  came  a  great  fear. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

LOVE — AND   LOYALTY 

AFTER  a  sleepless  night,  Nita  fell  towards 
dawn  into  a  heavy  slumber  from  which 
she  awoke  to  find  that  for  her  the  aspect  of  the 
world  was  changed.  Looking  back,  she  won- 
dered at  her  own  blindness.  Had  she  not 
from  the  very  first  been  perfectly  contented 
and  in  sympathy  with  Donald  Forsythe? 
Had  she  not  turned  to  him  in  her  perplexity, 
ten  years  and  more  ago?  Had  she  not  liked 
ever  since  to  consult  him,  longed  for  his  ap- 
proval, fiercely  resented  all  that  stood  in  his 
way?  And  now — 

Nita  Wynne — one  of  a  triangle!  Nita 
Wynne,  involved  in  a  " situation  a  trots!" 
Here  indeed  was  matter  for  the  mirth  of  the 
little  gods.  The  idea  of  such  a  thing  had 
never  crossed  her  mind,  so  incredible  did  it 
seem.  She  would  as  soon  have  expected  her- 
self to  turn  pickpocket. 

"Can  you  imagine  yourself  doing  anything 
you  thought  really — wrong,  Nita?" 


LOVE— AND  LOYALTY        263 

She  remembered  Mary's  question.  No; 
face  to  face  with  the  plain  issue,  she  could  not 
so  imagine  herself.  Yet  here  she  was, 
stranded  on  perilous  rocks  against  which  the 
great  waves  thundered,  where  a  single  false 
step — 

How  was  he  feeling — now?  For  the  truth 
had  come  to  him,  as  suddenly  as  to  herself: 
she  knew  that  with  an  intuitive  certainty  far 
beyond  all  doubt  or  question.  Both  had 
drifted,  both  awakened  to  hear  the  surge  and 
thunder. 

Yet  she  knew  the  whole  truth,  while  he — 
was  his  more  than  a  half  knowledge?  His 
face  had  been  full  in  the  light,  hers  partly  in 
shadow. 

Back  into  her  mind  sprang  memory  of 
Elsie's  complaint  that  Donald  had  refused  to 
promise  what  Atkinson  Matthews  wanted,  be- 
cause the  promise  was  one  he  could  not  keep, 
Elsie's  cry  "That's  Donald  all  over,"  and  her 
own  recognition  that  the  refusal  was  charac- 
teristic. This  recognition,  what  did  it  not  im- 
ply now? 

Loyalty:  loyalty  to  word  and  bond  and — 

Elsie. 

The  necessity  of  at  once  deciding  on  her  fu- 


264     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

ture  course  weighed  heavily  on  Nita.  All 
drifting  was — must  be — ended  forever.  But 
what  to  do?  How  to  find  and  choose  the  way 
which  would  be  the  best  for  all  three?  Her 
eyes  once  open  to  the  truth,  she  faced  it  cour- 
ageously, evading  nothing. 

That  other  woman,  the  woman  who  loved 
Drake,  had  come  to  her  to  learn  whether  she 
had  indeed  stood  between  him  and  any,  even 
the  remotest,  chance  of  happiness,  because 
thought  of  such  a  possibility  had  rendered  her 
pain  intolerable.  It  was  with  Geraldine's 
face,  Geraldine's  fear  before  her  eyes  that  Nita 
sought  desperately  for  a  way  of  helping  Don- 
ald Forsythe. 

And  it  was  while  she  was  thus  striving  to 
put  all  thought  of  self  aside  that  to  her  amaze- 
ment Elsie,  dainty  and  Persian-kitten-like  as 
ever,  with  Fluff  on  her  arm,  walked  into  the 
room. 

"Oh,  Nita  dear,  I  just  couldn't  keep  away 
any  longer!  I'm  so  terribly  unhappy!" 

And,  dropping  the  little  dog,  Elsie  threw 
herself  into  Nita's  arms,  sobbing  on  her  shoul- 
der while  Fluff  yapped  an  accompaniment. 

There  are  moments  in  every  life  when  it 
seems  as  though  one's  fate  were  entirely  con- 


LOVE— AND  LOYALTY        265 

trolled  by  the  mischief-making,  mirth-loving 
little  gods;  such  a  moment  had  now  come  to 
Nita  Wynne. 

Mechanically  she  asked  the  obvious,  un- 
avoidable question:  "Why,  what's  the  mat- 
ter, Elsie?" 

Elsie  dried  her  eyes,  reflecting  that  her  nose 
might  get  unbecomingly  red  if  she  wept  much 
longer,  and  answered  with  many  little  sniffs 
impeding  the  words:  "G-Geraldine  s-sailed 
to-day,  and  I'm  s-so  lonely!" 

In  spite  of  her  pain  and  perplexity,  Nita  al- 
most laughed  aloud.  The  idea  of  Elsie  cry- 
incr  for  Geraldine — for  Geraldine — with  whom 

o 

she  wrangled  every  time  they  met! 

"It's  too  bad!"  As  had  so  often  happened 
in  the  past,  Nita  spoke  with  an  irony  which 
was  entirely  lost  on  Elsie. 

"I  w-went  down  to  see  her  off"— the  sniffs 
were  subsiding — "and  took  her  some  orchids. 
Itfr> — er — a  man  I  know  had  just  sent  me  a 
dozen— perfect  beauties,  the  awfully  expensive 
kind.  You  know  orchids  look  awfully  snappy 
on  black,  and—  Oh,  dear,  I  felt  so  horribly, 
having  her  go  off  like  that!" 

Nita's  only  thought  was  of  the  threats  made 
against  the  Lusitania. 


266     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Of  course  you  must  be  anxious,"  she  said 
gently.  "But  I  wouldn't  worry  if  I  were  you. 
I  don't  believe  even  the  Germans  would  be 
fiendish  enough  to  sink  a  passenger  ship  full 
of  noncombatants." 

"Oh,  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that!"  exclaimed 
Elsie  naively.  "Of  course,  Geraldine  will  be 
all  right.  But  I  do  think  she  might  have 
stayed  with  me — I  can't  understand  such  self- 
ishness— Z'm  not  a  bit  that  way,  and  I —  But 
it's  perfectly  awful  to  have  men  go  crazy  about 
you  the  way  they  will  keep  doing  over  me!" 

"Is  it  the  Count?"  Nita  asked  perforce.  In 
her  own  mind  she  had  long  ago  concluded  that 
that  astute  gentleman  had  simply  made  use  of 
Elsie,  and  played  upon  her  vanity. 

"Well — er — partly,"  Elsie  spoke  with  a 
hesitation  evidently  meant  to  be  noticed.  "He 
tries  to  pretend  he's  awfully  indifferent,  but 
it's  just  put  on — I  can  see  that.  You  know 
I've  always  understood  people  awfully  well!" 

"I  don't  think  you  need  trouble  about  him. 
He's  not  the  sort  of  person  to  do  anything  des- 
perate." Before  the  words  ceased  to  vibrate, 
Nita  remembered  the  man  who  had  done  some- 
thing desperate. 

"It's  terribly  easy  for  you  to  talk,  Nita! 


LOVE— AND  LOYALTY        267 

You're  so  cold  and—  But  I'm  not  made  that 
way.  Besides,"  added  Elsie  with  infinite  sat- 
isfaction, licking  up,  so  to  speak,  every  avail- 
able bit  of  cream  with  extended  little  pink 
tongue,  "you've  never  been  through  the  sort 
of  experiences  I've  had!  Of  course  I  don't 
talk  about  them,  but  I  could  tell  you  stories — ! 
If  only  I  wasn't  so  tender-hearted  I —  Oh, 
do  be  quiet,  Fluff!" 

For  Fluff  was  making  a  series  of  little 
rushes  at  a  footstool  and  yapping  in  a  way 
Elsie  usually  described  as  "too  awfully  cute 
for  anything,"  but  at  the  present  moment 
found  exasperating.  So  she  caught  up  the 
little  dog,  administered  several  sharp  slaps 
that  made  Fluff  yowl  and  Nita  wince,  and 
went  on: 

"What  was  I  talking  about?  Oh,  yes;  I 
was  just  saying  I  hated  to  hurt — and  of  course, 
Mr.  Frayne— 

That  startled  Nita.    "Mr.  Frayne?" 

Elsie    blushed.     "Well,    he    hasn't    said- 
much.     You  know  he's  one  of  those  terribly 
strong,  silent  men — " 

Nita  was  entirely  satisfied.  She  was  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  Elsie's  propensity  for 
believing  that  every  man  who  complimented 


268     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

her  adored  her.  Elsie  had  missed  her  accus- 
tomed confidante,  her  accustomed  audience; 
that  and  that  alone,  had  brought  her  here.  If 
only  she  had  stayed  away — after  all  these 
months!  Unconsciously  Nita  sighed  and 
pushed  the  heavy  hair  back  off  her  burning 
forehead. 

"Does  your  head  ache?  You  look  awfully 
pale."  Elsie  spoke  in  her  prettiest,  most 
caressing  way. 

"A  little — it's  nothing.  A  touch  of  neu- 
ralgia, probably." 

"Oh,  you  poor  thing!  I  know  what  neu- 
ralgia is !  I  suffer  from  it  awfully.  Why,  last 
night,  after  I'd  been  out  in  the  wind — you  re- 
member how  it  blew  yesterday?  I  thought 
I'd  be  taken  right  off  my  feet  passing  the  li- 
brary !  I'd  been  shopping  till  I  was  just  ready 
to  drop — I  got  some  hand-embroidered 
blouses,  wonderful  bargains,  you  know,  and 
just  too  awfully  sweet!  They  didn't  fit  me 
— of  course  I  knew  they  wouldn't,  they 
weren't  anywhere  near  my  size,  but  I  thought 
I  might  as  well  have  them  sent  home;  I  can 
return  them  in  a  day  or  two —  Well,  when 
I  got  home,  I  thought  my  head  would  split! 
I  don't  believe  any  one  has  such  awful  head- 


LOVE— AND  LOYALTY        269 

aches  as  I  do,"  she  added  with  satisfaction. 
"And  Donald  isn't  a  bit  sympathetic.  He 
says  I'd  be  all  right  if  I'd  eat  a  sensible  lunch ; 
he's  terribly  unfeeling!  But  if  anything's 
wrong  with  him —  Why,  just  last  night — " 

Donald — last  night!  If  only  she  would  talk 
of  something,  anything  else !  Nita  could  have 
screamed  with  pain;  but  she  merely  clenched 
her  hands  until  the  nails  made  angry  marks  on 
the  soft  palms. 

Unconsciously  merciless,  Elsie  went  on: 
"Well,  last  night  was  a  fair  sample.  He 
never  came  in  till  awfully  late,  and  then  of 
course  he  didn't  want  any  dinner — said  he  was 
too  tired  to  eat  and  didn't  care  for  any.  Of 
course  it  was  rather  cold — I  had  to  have  some- 
thing, and  I  wasn't  going  to  wait  forever: 
I  knew  he-  could  have  gotten  home  per- 
fectly well,  if  he  hadn't  stopped  to  go  to  one 
of  those  stupid  Belgian— they're  none  of  his 
business!  I  told  him  so,  and  he  was  awfully 
cross.  Of  course  he  didn't  say  anything,  but 
I  could  see—  You've  no  idea,  Nita,  how  aw- 
fully hard  it  is  to  get  along  with  a  fussy,  self- 
ish person  like  Donald!" 

"Too  tired  to  eat— out  awfully  late."  The 
words  bit  into  Nita's  consciousness  as  though 


270     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

they  had  been  so  many  drops  of  carbolic  acid. 
She  knew  why  he  had  not  returned  home  until 
after  the  dinner  hour,  though  it  was  still  early 
when,  almost  in  silence,  they  parted  at  her 
door.  Her  torturing  imagination  pictured 
him  tramping  the  streets,  unable  to  enter  the 
place  he  called  home  and  face  the  life  he  had 
made  for  himself,  fighting,  fighting — 

She  said  something — what,  she  never  knew. 
Only  she  presently  became  aware  that  Elsie 
was  talking  of  Helen  Carstairs'  recent  mar- 
riage, and  was  dully  grateful  for  the  change  of 
subject. 

At  last  Elsie  declared  she  must  be  going. 

"The  buses  get  so  crowded!  I  do  wish  I 
had  a  car!"  Elsie  never  walked  over  three 
blocks  under  any  combination  of  circumstances. 
"It's  been  so  awfully  nice  to  have  a  good  long 
talk  with  you,  Nita,  darling,  and  hear  all 
you've  been  doing!  Come  along,  baby  dear. 
Where's  muvver's  p'ecious  ittie  darling?"  she 
added,  looking  around  for  Fluff,  who  was 
thoroughly  enjoying  his  brief  liberty.  He 
had  discovered  Nita's  work  basket,  and 
thought  that  as  a  plaything  it  left  nothing  to 
be  desired. 

"Oh,    angel   'tweetness!"    Elsie   exclaimed, 


LOVE— AND  LOYALTY        271 

trying  to  extricate  the  little  dog  from  a  tangle 
of  silk  and  thread.  "I'm  afraid  he's  gotten 
your  things  into  an  awful  mess,  Nita  darling, 
but  I  know  you  don't  mind.  'Urn  was  a 
naughty,  naughty  ittie  sing!" 

She  took  Fluff  in  her  arms  and  showered 
him  with  kisses — a  proceeding  to  which  he  sub- 
mitted with  the  hopeless  resignation  of  one 
who  has  suffered  much  and  often. 

When  Elsie  at  last  was  gone,  Nita  gave  a 
long  shuddering  sigh  of  relief.  Suddenly  she 
put  her  hands  to  her  throat  and  flung  herself 
face  downwards  on  her  sofa,  biting  her  lips 
until  they  bled. 

In  after  years  she  always  shrank  from  the 
memory  of  this,  the  darkest  hour  of  her  life. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE   MOMENT   OF   TRIAL 

r  I  THROUGH  days  which  afterwards  re- 
M.  mained  in  her  memory  as  one  long  and 
hideous  nightmare,  Nita  fought  for  self-mas- 
tery. And  little  by  little,  as  the  pain  that 
was  with  her  wherever  she  went  and  whatever 
she  did,  dogging  her  every  footstep,  greeting 
her  with  the  dawn  of  every  new  day,  haunting 
her  throughout  the  endless  watches  of  the 
dragging  nights,  became  a  familiar  instead  of 
a  strange  companion,  her  will  began  to  assert 
itself.  She  had  been  beaten  to  her  knees,  but 
remain  there  she  would  not.  And  at  last  she 
was  able  to  grip  her  pain  and  throttle  it  into 
submission,  that  she  might  ask  and  have  an  an- 
swer to  the  question:  "What  was  best — for 
him?" 

That  was  what  mattered  now — that  and 
that  alone. 

Something  she  must  do ;  she  could  not  go  on 
meeting  him  casually,  for  in  every  such  en- 


THE  MOMENT  OF  TRIAL     273 

counter  there  was  danger —  Danger  for  him, 
danger  of  increasing  that  sense  of  having 
failed  in  perfect  loyalty  which  she  knew  was 
to  him  as  gall  added  to  his  already  bitter  cup. 

No  glittering  generalities  about  the  inherent 
rights  of  passion  embellished  for  her  eyes  the 
downward  road.  She  would  never  be  easy 
on  herself;  she  had  learned  to  see  other  peo- 
ple's black  and  white  soften  into  gray  while  her 
own  retained  their  sharply  marked  difference. 
And  the  distinction  was  as  plain  to  her  now  as 
it  had  ever  been. 

So  there  in  the  pleasant  room  overlooking 
Gramercy  Park,  Nita  Wynne  faced  her  pres- 
ent and  her  future  with  honest,  unswerving 
eyes.  Her  point  of  view  was  essentially  di- 
rect and  simple:  A  promise  could  not  be 
broken  without  dishonor.  Before  God  and 
man,  Donald  Forsythe  had  bound  himself  by 
a  solemn  pledge;  she  knew  that  to  him  as  to 
her  it  was  a  thing  which  at  all  costs  must  be 
held  inviolate.  And  an  added  force  to  the 
compulsion  of  that  pledge  was  given  by  Elsie's 
very  deficiencies— -the  pitiless,  inescapable 
claim  of  the  weak  upon  the  strong.  She  was 
no  other  now  than  she  had  always  been. 

They  could  buy  happiness,  he  and  she,  only 


274     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

at  the  price  of  self-respect.  And  she  well 
knew  all  that  self-respect  and  honor  and  loy- 
alty meant  to  this  man  she  loved  so  dearly,  this 
man  of  the  cynical  tongue  and  the  knightly 
soul. 

But  what  was  she  to  do?  Inaction  was  in- 
tolerable to  her  now,  as  always.  And  sud- 
denly, sharply,  hideously,  the  answer  came — 
came  with  the  shrill  cry  of  a  newsboy,  flinging 
horror  to  the  shuddering  air. 

For  the  unbelievable  had  happened;  the 
Lusitania  had  gone  down. 

"It  means  war,"  Mary  said  quietly. 

In  the  darkness  of  the  room,  a  darkness 
modified  only  by  the  shaded  light  from  a  small 
desk  lamp,  Nita's  face  appeared  luminously 
white.  And  there  was  a  note  as  of  distant 
bugles  in  her  voice,  although  she  spoke  as 
quietly  as  her  friend  and  even  more  briefly. 

"It  must,"  she  said. 

There  followed  a  moment's  silence.  Mary's 
nerves  were  tingling.  She  felt  that  Nita,  sit- 
ting there  so  motionless,  outwardly  so  unex- 
cited,  was  in  truth  a  veritable  human  dynamo, 
a  center  of  force  which  charged  the  air  with 
electricity.  And  impelled  by  this  sense  of  an 


275 

abundant,  concentrated  power,  she  asked  al- 
most breathlessly: 

"What  are  you  going  to  do,  Nita?" 

It  was  the  question  which  had  once  before 
been  put  to  her,  under  very  different  circum- 
stances and  when  she  was  a  very  different  per- 
son ;  it  was  the  question  she  had  been  putting 
to  herself,  consciously  and  sternly,  or  uncon- 
sciously and  imploringly,  during  all  these  re- 
cent, emotion-packed  days.  And  now  she  re- 
plied swiftly  and  without  any  shadow  of  wav- 
ering : 

"I'm  going  to  do  my  best — over  there." 

"Won't  you  wait—?" 

The  broken  phrase  was  eloquent. 

"No!"  The  monosyllable  snapped  like  a 
whiplash.  "Would  you  wait  while  you 
watched  a  fire  sweeping  forward?  Wait 
while  you  watched  people  burn,  because  they 
weren't  your  own?  God  knows  I  can't  do 
much!  But  what  I  can  do — I  will." 

"You've  made  your  plans?" 

"Yes;  as  soon  as  the  news  came.  The 
Cavanaghs  are  giving  a  hospital  unit  to 
France.  They're  going  over  with  supplies 
themselves  on  the  next  Cunarder.  And  I'm 
going  with  them." 


276     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

She  broke  off  there.  True  child  of  a  gen- 
eration which  was  shy,  half-ashamed  of  emo- 
tions, the  sentences  which  rushed  to  her  lips 
seemed  to  her  extravagant,  high-flown.  But 
the  fire  that  had  been  smoldering  in  her  eyes 
was  a  clear  blaze  as  she  added  simply:  "I've 
got  to  do  something  definite  in  the  fight 
against — them  " 

Had  she  said  pirates,  Huns,  spawn  of  Hell, 
or  even  summed  the  whole  up  in  the  one  word 
Prussians,  it  would  scarcely  have  thrilled  her 
hearer  as  did  that  pronoun,  spoken  as  she  spoke 
it. 

A  long  time  the  two  women  sat  in  silence. 
The  tragedy  indeed  meant  more  to  Nita  than 
even  Mary  guessed,  for  Geraldine  was  of 
those  who  had  gone  down  with  the  stricken 
ship,  dying  bravely  and,  as  Nita  correctly  sur- 
mised, gladly.  And  Devlin  Morris  too  was 
dead,  Donald's  friend,  the  young  lawyer  for 
whom  great  things  had  been  predicted;  these 
and  others  they  both  had  known. 

She  remembered  the  bitter  cry  in  which 
Donald  had  given  vent  to  his  grief  and  rage  at 
his  own  powerlessness.  So  far  as  was  hu- 
manly possible,  she  would  fight  for  both. 
There  where  France  and  England,  Belgium 


THE  MOMENT  OF  TRIAL     277 

and  Russia  and  brave  little  Serbia  strove  in  a 
death-grapple  with  the  Powers  of  Darkness- 
there,  where  he  could  not,  she  would  go.  Serv- 
ing him — and  God.  She  saw  her  way  clear 
at  last;  in  exaltation  she  trod  the  heights,  con- 
secrated and  unafraid. 

All  through  the  brief,  busy  time  of  prepara- 
tion, this  sense  of  consecration  remained  with 
her.  And  then — for  she  was  no  saint,  but  only 
a  faulty  woman,  impatient,  warm-blooded — it 
suddenly  vanished,  and  she  was  left  with  only 
the  consciousness  that  a  parting  which  might 
well  prove  lifelong  yawned  like  an  open  grave 
between  Donald  and  herself.  She  believed 
the  soul  destined  to  "carry,  high  through  death, 
her  cup  unspilled,"  that  a  lifelong  parting  was 
not  a  parting  forever:  but  she  craved  the  hu- 
man joy,  the  years  spent  side  by  side  in  human 
companionship.  Something  higher,  finer, 
nobler,  might  be  in  store  for  them;  but  they 
would  have  missed  the  best  this  life  has  to 
give. 

She  longed  to  see  and  to  speak  with  him  once 
more;  she  feared  a  last  interview  with  its  pos- 
sible shattering  of  hard-won  self-control,  but 
— how  could  she  go  to  face  death,  as  face  it  she 
must  and  would,  without  so  much  as  a  word, 


278     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

a  handclasp?  And  yet  if  it  were  to  help  him, 
to  save  for  him  his  faith  in  himself — 

The  struggle  was  still  being  waged  within 
her,  when  she  learned  that  the  power  of  de- 
cision had  been  taken  out  of  her  hands.  Elsie 
announced  that  she  was  coming  down  to  see 
her  off,  and  had  insisted  upon  Donald's  ac- 
companying her. 

"There  may  be  a  riot  or — or  anything,"  she 
tearfully  protested  over  the  telephone.  "It 
wouldn't  be  safe  for  me  to  come  by  myself,  and 
I  do  so  want  to  see  the  last  of  youl  Oh,  I 
hope  America  will  keep  out  of  this  awful  war!" 

Neither  Elsie's  fear,  nor  her  evident  belief 
that  their  good-by  was  to  be  good-by  indeed, 
had  any  especial  effect  on  Nita.  Both  were 
swept  away  by  the  thought  of  seeing  Donald 
once  again. 

She  nerved  herself  to  that  encounter  as  she 
did  not  need  to  nerve  herself  to  the  obvious 
perils  of  the  crossing.  Yet  what  had  she  to 
fear  from  it?  Nothing,  to  the  eyes  of  many; 
the  loss  of  the  most  precious  thing  in  the  world, 
to  her  own. 

The  day  so  longed  for,  yet  so  dreaded,  came 
at  last.  Nita  met  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cavanagh 
with  Doctor  Macneven,  the  physician  who  was 


to  be  in  charge  of  the  hospital  unit,  at  the  pier. 
The  doctor  had  served  with  the  American  Red 
Cross  in  France  during  the  dark  days  of  1914, 
returned  to  the  United  States  for  a  brief, 
much-needed  rest,  and  was  now  going  back. 
Nita,  who  had  known  him  for  years,  would  or- 
dinarily have  had  much  to  say  to  him,  but  now, 
all  her  senses  were  alert  for  the  sight  of  a  thin, 
clever  face,  the  sound  of  a  familiar,  dragging 
step. 

She  went  down  to  her  stateroom,  made  a 
few  necessary  arrangements,  and  hurried  up 
on  deck  again.  The  day  was  bright  and  clear, 
with  a  brisk  breeze,  and  the  waters  of  the  har- 
bor danced  and  sparkled  in  the  sunshine.  Yet 
though  a  beautiful,  it  was  not  a  joyous  day; 
for  over  there  by  the  New  Jersey  shore  lay  the 
interned  liners,  black,  massive,  sullen.  And 
from  them  there  seemed  to  emanate,  like  a  dark 
and  poisonous  vapor,  something  of  the  evil 
spirit  directing  the  nation  whose  flag  they 
flew. 

And  extending  far  up  the  river,  in  lines  of 
white  dots,  was  the  American  fleet — the  fleet 
upon  which  so  much,  it  was  then  believed, 
might  soon  depend. 

"Oh,  here  you  are,  Nita!"     Elsie's  rather 


280     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

high-pitched  voice  made  Nita  start,  although 
she  had  been  expecting  to  hear  it.  She  forced 
her  stiff  lips  into  a  smile. 

"Such  a  time  as  we  had  getting  on  board!" 
Elsie  continued  excitedly.  "You  wouldn't 
believe  the  awful  amount  of  red  tape —  I 
didn't  think  we'd  ever  be  able  to  manage  it, 
but  Donald —  And  then  they  knew  I'd  lost 
my  darling  sister  on  the  Lusitania" 

She  put  her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes,  feel- 
ing herself  to  be  an  object  of  intense  inter- 
est. 

Nita  introduced  her  to  the  rest  of  the  party 
and  noticed,  with  disappointment  and  relief  so 
intermingled  that  she  could  not  have  told 
which  feeling  predominated,  that  Doctor  Mac- 
neven  and  Donald  For sy the  had  fallen  quickly 
and  easily  into  talk.  They  were  old  friends, 
and  had  many  sympathies  and  ideas  in  com- 
mon. 

But  though  he  talked  to  the  doctor,  his  eyes 
never  left  her. 

"It's  an  awfully  solemn  business,  going  off 
like  this,  isn't  it?"  Elsie  chattered  on,  putting 
into  heedless,  uncomprehending  speech  some- 
thing of  that  which  lay  deep  down  in  the 
hearts  of  all  the  others,  "Do  be  sure  and  have 


THE  MOMENT  OF  TRIAL     281 

your  life-preserver  handy,  Nita.  If  I  were 
you,  I'd  put  it  on  and  keep  it  on." 

Nita,  the  stiff  smile  still  bending  her  lips, 
forced  herself  to  answer: 

"Oh,  no,  you  wouldn't !"  She  was  doing  her 
courageous  best  to  speak  lightly.  "They're 
too  uncomfortable.  You'd  find  you  couldn't 
possibly  sleep  in  one." 

"Well,  I  don't  see  how  you'll  ever  be  able  to 
sleep  one  single  wink,  anyway!  When  you 
think  that  the  very  next  minute — !"  She 
shivered  with  a  pleasant,  vicarious  sense  of 
imminent  danger,  looked  up  at  stately  Mrs. 
Cavanagh  and  went  on,  relishing  what  she  felt 
was  a  most  impressive  statement.  "Of  course, 
you  know,  all  this  awful  business  comes  home 
to  me  more  than  to  most  people.  You  know 
my  darling  sister  was  lost  on  the  Lusitania." 

Nita  turned  away  her  head  with  a  feeling 
of  repulsion  she  could  not  altogether  repress. 
The  minutes  sped.  And  presently  a  warn- 
ing bell  clanged.  There  were  only  a  very  few 
moments  left.  He  must  come  to  her  now! 
So  far  he  had  successfully  avoided  her,  but 
now  he  must  take  her  hand  and  meet  her 
glance.  And  then  .  .  .  would  he  be  able  to 
maintain  his  air  of  mere  calm  friendliness,  or 


282     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

would  there  flash  into  his  eyes  that  look  she 
had  once  seen  in  them,  that  look  which  having 
seen,  she  could  never  forget?  And  suddenly, 
through  some  subtle,  inexplicable  intuition,  she 
knew  he  would  be  able  to  suppress  the  betraj^- 
ing  light,  unless  she  wilfully  evoked  it.  Steel- 
strong,  trained  through  many  difficult  years, 
his  will  could  master  even  that  force,  did  she 
not  join  with  it  against  him.  And  now  her 
own  craving  heart  sprang  up  in  revolt,  tugging 
frantically  against  the  bonds  of  honor,  cry- 
ing out  that  she  could  not  leave  him  thus. 
They  must  have  their  supreme  moment  of  mu- 
tual confession,  though  it  be  followed  by  life- 
long regret. 

And  the  issue  lay  in  her  keeping,  her  con- 
trol. She  knew  that  with  unreasoned,  abso- 
lute certainty.  Let  her  but  show  him  the 
truth,  and  all  she  now  hungered  and  thirsted 
for  would  be  hers.  Surely  it  was  no  crime— 
a  look,  an  instant's  happiness!  That  joy 
grasped,  what  mattered  the  after  sorrow? 
She  was  willing  to  pay  the  price. 

She  was  willing  to  pay  the  price;  was  she 
willing  that  he  should  pay,  too?  Plainly  as 
though  it  were  some  electric  sign  flashing  out 
at  midnight,  the  alternative  appeared  before 


THE  MOMENT  OF  TRIAL     283 

her.  He  was  as  yet  uncertain  of  his  self -be- 
trayal: she  knew  that,  for  sheer  intensity  of 
feeling  had  rendered  her  clairvoyant.  By 
forcing  herself  to  play  the  mere  friend  who 
had  no  need  of  concealment  or  fear,  she  could 
convince  him  that  he  had  revealed  nothing.  It 
rested  with  her  to  give  him  back  his  self- 
reliance,  to  restore  to  him  his  belief  in  his  own 
unstained  loyalty,  to  assure  him  that  his  secret 
was  his  still,  held  close  and  inviolate.  All  this 
she  could  give  to  render  the  long  road  stretch- 
ing before  him,  if  not  smooth,  at  any  rate  far 
less  stony.  All  this — or  a  moment's  joy,  fol- 
lowed instantly  by  shame,  a  sense  of  failure,  of 
dishonor.  And  this  her  doing,  who  had  sworn 
to  hold  their  love  high  above  all  that  might 
stain  or  soil  it! 

Thoughts  like  these  rushed,  fragmentary, 
chaotic,  through  Nita's  mind,  emotions  rather 
than  ideas.  And  beneath  and  penetrating 
them  all  there  echoed  the  memory  of  a  weary 
voice  speaking  slow,  difficult  words:  "Noth- 
ing matters  any  more." 

Again  came  the  clang  of  the  bell,  followed 
by  a  warning  call.  Elsie  jumped  up  in  the 
middle  of  a  sentence. 

"I  suppose  that  means  we've  got  to  go," 


284     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

she  said  regretfully.  "Good-by,  Nita  darling! 
Do  take  care  of  yourself  and  write  if  you  ever 
— if  you  ever  have  time.  Come  on,  Donald, 
we  must  hurry!  Good-by,  dear,  good-by!" 

She  hastened  towards  the  gangway. 

Nita  saw  Donald  shaking  hands  with  the 
doctor;  then  he  turned  to  her. 

"Good-by,  Miss  Wynne,"  he  said.  His 
voice  was  a  little  hoarse,  a  little  strained. 

The  moment  had  come,  the  moment  when 
she  must  choose  for  both.  An  instant  she 
wavered — and  temptation  had  her  by  the 
throat.  She  had  tasted  joy;  with  her  whole 
heart  and  soul,  with  every  nerve  and  fiber  of 
her  being  she  craved  that  which  she  could  get 
so  easily,  so  very  easily.  And  again  the  tired 
voice  was  in  her  ears :  "Nothing  matters  any 
more." 

Did  anything,  could  anything  matter  to  her, 
save  Donald  Forsythe's  ultimate  good? 

One  man  who  had  loved  her  was  dead.  Him 
she  had  somehow  failed;  but  this  other  who 
loved  her  and  whom  she  so  loved,  him  she 
would  not  fail.  And  she  had  seen  the  great 
fear  dawn  in  his  eyes,  she  saw  the  dread  that 
was  in  them  now.  She  would  kill  his  fear  that 
he  had  been  false  to  his  own  ideals,  give  him 


loyalty  and  honor  to  be  his  companions 
through  the  years.  For  she  had  learned  life's 
difficult  lesson  of  relative  values,  and  she  knew 
what  was  of  greatest  worth.  Leniency  to- 
wards others,  because  of  the  impossibility  of 
knowing  the  truth  about  their  temptations  and 
resistances,  yes;  but  never  a  compromise  with 
one's  highest  standards  for  one's  self. 

Only  a  couple  of  seconds  elapsed  between 
Donald's  "Good-by,  Miss  Wynne"  and  the 
instant  when  Nita  faced  him,  her  hand  out- 
stretched, a  sweet  grave  smile  on  her  lips.  But 
in  that  flash  of  time  she  had  met  the  supreme 
test,  had  fought  her  battle,  and  emerged  vic- 
torious. 

"Good-by,"  she  said.  "Please  remember 
me  to  all  our  friends  on  the  committee." 

Voice  and  smile  were  held  steady,  unfalter- 
ing. If  she  spoke  with  a  touch  of  solemnity, 
it  was  no  more  than  the  occasion  warranted. 

And  then  he  was  gone,  hurrying  with  his 
quick  limping  step  across  the  gangway  to  the 
pier  and — Elsie. 

Darkness  closed  over  Nita;  she  swayed  and 
caught  at  the  rail  to  steady  herself.  For  a 
moment  she  clutched  it,  blindly,  despairingly. 

A  long,  slow  shudder  passed  through  the 


286     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

huge  vessel,  and  that  movement  seemed  to 
dispel  the  darkness.  Once  again  Nita  saw  the 
sunlit  river,  the  jagged  sky-line,  the  veil  of 
smoke  which  hung  festooned  over  the  city,  the 
brilliant  blue  above,  the  little  group  of  peo- 
ple standing  on  the  shore.  Then  river  and 
sky  and  shore  vanished.  She  saw  one  face, 
one  only. 

The  ship  trembled  again.  A  tiny  line  of 
water  appeared  between  it  and  the  wharf,  a 
line  which  broadened  slowly  at  first,  then 
faster  and  faster.  And  still  Nita  saw  noth- 
ing save  Donald  Forsythe's  face.  He  stood 
perfectly  still,  not  moving  even  to  make  a  ges- 
ture of  farewell;  but  she  knew  he  was  watch- 
ing her. 

For  the  second  time  in  her  life  she  had 
closed  a  door  behind  her;  for  the  second  time 
in  her  life  she  was  going  out  alone,  into  the 
unknown. 

Wider  and  wider  grew  the  space  between 
them  as  the  steamer  advanced  in  stateliest 
fashion  towards  the  sea.  The  little  group  on 
shore  became  blurred,  merged  presently  into  a 
formless  mass.  Slowly,  steadily,  relentlessly, 
the  great  ship  moved  onward  towards  those 
lands  over  which  the  war-cloud  hung.  And 


287 

to  Nita  Wynne,  standing  there  alone,  as  she 
believed  that  henceforward  she  must  always 
stand,  there  came  again  that  solemn  sense  of 
consecration — the  touch  of  God's  hand  laid 
upon  her  soul. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  LITTLE   GODS  ENJOY   THEMSELVES 

fTlHE  August  sun,  reflected  back  from  a 
A  brick  wall  on  the  opposite  side  of  a  nar- 
row court,  poured  a  steady  stream  of  heat  into 
Donald  Forsythe's  small  private  office,  though 
it  was  only  about  half -past  nine  o'clock.  The 
day  was  not  an  exceptionally  warm  one,  but 
the  little  room  was  already  like  an  oven.  And 
yet  Donald  dreaded  leaving  it,  as  leave  it  he 
must  early  in  the  following  week,  for  East 
Hampton  and  Elsie. 

He  was  thinner  than  ever,  if  that  were  pos- 
sible, the  lines  of  his  irregular  profile  more 
sharply  cut,  the  hollows  at  the  temples  more 
pronounced,  the  dark  eyes  more  deeply  set. 
His  life,  never  particularly  easy,  had  been 
doubly  difficult  since  that  April  day  of  which 
he  scarcely  dared  to  think.  Always  he  had 
found  his  one  anodyne  in  work,  and  during 
these  past  months  he  had  toiled  as  never  be- 
fore. 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  289 

The  telephone  rang  imperiously;  he  failed 
to  recognize  the  voice  which  asked: 

"Is  this  Mr.  Forsythe— Mr.  Donald  For- 
sythe?" 

"Yes.    Who's  speaking,  please?" 

"This  is  Cuthbert  Frayne." 

"Who?    I  didn't  get—" 

"Cuthbert  Frayne." 

"Oh!     Good  morning,  Mr.  Frayne." 

Donald  did  not  allow  any  note  of  surprise 
to  enter  his  voice,  but  he  nevertheless  won- 
dered what  on  earth  Cuthbert  Frayne  could 
possibly  want  with  him.  There  had  been 
months,  during  the  past  autumn  and  winter, 
when  Frayne  rather  annoyed  him,  as  being  the 
object  of  one  of  those  transient,  silly  infatua- 
tions of  Elsie's.  But  all  that  had  apparently 
ended  some  time  ago,  and  much  to  his  relief, 
since  otherwise  it  would  have  been  out  of  the 
question  to  allow  Elsie  to  go  to  the  country 
without  him,  while  to  require  her  to  remain  in 
town  was  practically  impossible. 

"Are  you  alone?" 

Both  the  question  and  the  tone  in  which  it 
was  asked  were  peculiar,  and  Donald  replied 
promptly  and  with  some  curiosity: 

"Yes;  quite  alone." 


290     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Then — Forsythe,  go  to  East  Hampton 
this  morning.  Take  the  ten-seven  train. 
Don't  wait — go  now." 

"Why,  what  in  the  name  of — " 

"I  can't  explain.  Only — go!  And  see 
here,  Forsythe.  Whatever  happens,  remem- 
ber, Z  told  you  to  go." 

The  receiver  clicked  on  the  hook  as,  before 
Donald  could  say  another  word,  Frayne  rang 
off.  He  tried  to  get  the  connection  renewed 
but  without  success,  and  from  Frayne's  of- 
fice received  only  an  assurance  that  he  had  not 
been  down  that  day  and  was  not  expected  be- 
fore the  late  afternoon,  if  then. 

The  whole  affair  was  perplexing;  slight  as 
was  his  acquaintance  with  Frayne,  Donald 
was  sure  there  was  some  good  reason  for  his 
mysterious — was  it  advice,  or  warning?  He 
had  spoken  with  unmistakable  sincerity  and— 
there  was  nothing  of  importance  to  be  done  in 
the  office  and  just  time  to  catch  the  ten-seven 
train.  Donald  shut  his  desk. 

Owing  to  the  breaking-down  of  a  gravel  cart 
at  a  grade  crossing,  the  train  was  more  than 
an  hour  late,  and  Donald  had  plenty  of  time 
to  think  the  whole  matter  over  quietly  before 
they  drew  into  the  station  at  East  Hampton, 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  291 

a  little  after  two.  He  had  sent  no  word  of  his 
coming,  partly  because  it  seemed  unnecessary, 
partly  because  of  a  peculiar,  foreboding  in- 
stinct. And  it  was  this  same  sense  of  tangled 
issues  which  led  him,  once  arrived  at  the  Maid- 
stone  Inn,  to  go  unannounced  straight  up  to 
Elsie's  room  and  knock  at  her  door. 

The  "Come  in!"  was  immediate,  as  though 
such  a  summons  had  been  expected.  He 
opened  the  door. 

Elsie  faced  him,  dressed  as  for  a  journey. 
She  was  fastening  her  gloves.  A  packed  suit 
case  with  her  initials  on  it  stood  ready  beside 
her.  And  as  she  saw  him  she  gave  a  queer, 
muffled,  animal-like  little  cry  and  shrank  back. 
Fluff,  tucked  under  her  arm,  yapped  shrilly. 

Donald  closed  the  door,  and  with  his  back 
to  it  stood  silent,  looking  at  her.  He  had  a 
curious  feeling  of  unreality,  of  playing  a  part 
whose  every  word  and  gesture  had  been  ar- 
ranged long  ago. 

"Well?"  he  said  presently. 

Elsie's  cheeks  were  touched  with  rouge:  it 
stood  forth  now,  startling  against  her  pallor. 
Her  eyes  were  full  of  fear.  She  had  been 
keyed  up  to  meet  another  and  a  very  different 
situation;  the  existing  one  had  come  too  sud- 


292     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

denly  for  her  rather  slow  wits  to  make  the  im- 
perative changes,  imperative  adjustments. 
She  could  not  take  hold  of  it  and  protect  her- 
self on  the  instant  as  a  cleverer  woman  might 
have  done. 

"Why  are  you  here?"  she  gasped.  The 
words  meant  little;  the  tone  much. 

Only  the  surface  of  his  mind  was  occupied 
by  her.  Underneath,  he  was  wondering  how 
and  why  Cuthbert  Frayne  had  come  to  know 
and  to  give  him  that  warning  message.  So  his 
reply  was  long  delayed,  and  she  could  not  en- 
dure the  strain. 

"You  shan't  stop  me!"  she  cried  sharply, 
hysterically.  "You  shan't,  I  tell  you,  you 
shan't!  I'm  going  to  him — I  don't  care  what 
you  say,  I  don't  care  what  happens." 

The  rising  sobs  choked  her. 

Donald,  still  standing  silent,  his  back 
against  the  door,  saw  red  for  a  moment.  A 
brief,  furious  rage,  unreasoning,  atavistic, 
caught  and  shook  him.  He  was  suddenly  sure 
that  it  was  Cuthbert  Frayne  to  whom  Elsie 
alluded,  and  had  Frayne  entered  his  presence 
at  that  instant,  he  would  indubitably  have  had 
him  by  the  throat. 

Then  swiftly  as  it  had  come,  his  rage  sub- 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  293 

sided;  had  not  Elsie,  in  accordance  with  her 
own  expressed  wish,  long  ceased  to  be  his  wife 
in  anything  but  name?  Between  them  no 
mental  or  spiritual  bond  had  ever  existed. 
Why  should  he,  a  reasonable  man  of  the 
twentieth  century,  yield  to  the  possessive, 
dog-in-the-manger  instinct  of  the  primitive 
brute? 

His  composure  regained,  he  looked  her  up 
and  down  wonderingly.  He  had  long  known 
the  potentiality  that  was  within  her  of  this  sud- 
den recklessness,  this  sudden  willingness  to 
fling  aside  the  social  position  about  which  she 
talked  so  much,  seeming  to  value  it  so  highly. 
Always  he  had  marveled  at  the  streak  of 
primitive  passion  in  the  otherwise  worldly  and 
calculating  Elsie,  aware  that  it  might  at  any 
instant  transform  her  into  a  little  animal, 
ready  to  sacrifice  to  her  immediate  desires  and 
appetites  all  that  she  usually  cared  for  most. 
One  could  not,  he  knew,  count  on  her,  count 
on  her  reactions  to  any  given  stimulus,  as  it  is 
possible  to  do  with  most  people.  But  he  was 
not  a  physician,  and  he  did  not  fully  under- 
stand, did  not  see  the  whole  truth  as  Doctor 
Brainerd  had  glimpsed  it  on  that  winter  even- 
ing when  the  pink-shaded  candlelight  falling 


294     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

on  Elsie's  face  had  revealed  that  which  he  felt 
guilty  for  having  observed. 

Donald's  voice  was  tired  and  pitying,  rather 
than  angry,  as  he  asked  quietly  and  a  little 
wonderingly:  "Is  it — Cuthbert  Frayne?" 

She  had  quailed  at  sight  of  him,  and  she 
quailed  still.  She  tried  to  answer,  tried  to 
protest,  but  could  not.  It  was  as  though  he 
had  brought  with  him  an  arctic  frost,  congeal- 
ing her  hot  blood. 

And  just  at  that  moment  a  knock  sounded 
on  the  door,  and  they  heard  the  voice  of  the 
Irish  porter,  saying:  "The  carriage  is  coom 
ter  take  yer  ter  th'  thrain,  m'm." 

Donald  opened  the  door,  so  placing  himself 
that  he  screened  Elsie. 

"Mrs.  Forsythe  has  changed  her  mind. 
She  isn't  going  to-day,"  he  said. 

He  had  not  the  faintest  doubt  of  the  power 
of  his  will  over  hers,  of  his  ability  perfectly  to 
control  her  actions,  so  long  as  he  was  with  her 
in  person.  For  these  were  facts  which  had 
been  demonstrated  many  times. 

The  door  closed  again,  and  turning,  he  re- 
peated his  question  in  a  slightly  altered  form: 
"It  is— Cuthbert  Frayne?" 

She  nodded ;  then  broke  into  a  shrill,  hysteri- 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  295 

cal  cry:  "I  will  go  to  him— I  will— I  will! 
I  hate  you!  I've  hated  you  for  years!  I 
won't—" 

At  the  moment  she  really  believed  she  had 
hated  Donald  for  years;  but  she  was  in  truth 
quite  unable  to  cherish  any  strong  feeling  for 
any  length  of  time,  and  what  she  now  called 
hatred  was  only  a  mixture  of  irritation,  dis- 
appointment, and  a  vague  dislike.  Donald 
knew  this,  and  he  smiled  a  little;  for  to  him 
she  could  not  but  seem  rather  absurd. 

"You're  going  to  stay  here  in  East  Hamp- 
ton— for  a  while,  anyway,"  he  said,  with  the 
quiet  determination  against  which  she  had  long 
since  become  aware  that  her  resistance  was  as 
futile  as  Fluff's,  though  this  did  not  prevent 
her  from  attempting  feeble  combat. 

She  threw  herself  face  downwards  on  the 
bed,  crying  unrestrainedly,  like  the  spoilt  child 
she  so  greatly  resembled. 

"Oh — oh — !  I  wish  I  was  dead!  Every- 
body's horrid  to  me,"  she  wailed.  "I'll  kill 
myself — I  will!  Then  you'll  be  sorry  you 
treated  me  so!  I  will  kill  myself — I  don't 
care — " 

"Oh,  no,  you  won't,"  Donald  remarked  with 
calm  conviction.  "Oh,  no,  you  won't.  You 


296     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

will  sit  up  and  listen  to  me.  Now  then,"  and 
something,  the  ring  of  command  in  his  voice, 
perhaps,  made  her  obey,  though  the  tears  were 
still  running  down  her  face,  streaking  the 
rouge  and  powder,  and  the  great  gulping  sobs 
convulsed  her  slender  throat — "now  then;  you 
were  going  to  run  away?" 

"Y-yes."  The  word  came  reluctantly,  de- 
spite her  previous  outbursts.  The  expensive 
French  hat  of  blue  straw  which  matched  her 
suit  had  been  knocked  awry,  giving  her  a  some- 
what dissipated  appearance. 

"You  were  going  to  Frayne?"  The  ring  of 
command  was  still  in  his  voice. 

For  answer,  she  sobbed  violently. 

He  paused;  then  said  with  the  utmost  de- 
liberation: "It  was  Frayne  who  telephoned 
me  to  come  down  here  to-day." 

That  made  her  gasp.  "Oh,  he  wouldn't! 
He  wanted  me  to  wait — to  go  to  Reno  or  some- 
where and  get  a  divorce,  but  I — I — couldn't 
bear — /  don't  mind  the  scandal!  I  love  him 
—I—" 

A  fresh  spasm  of  sobbing  choked  her. 

But  that  broken  confession  had  dispersed 
all  uncertainty  for  Donald,  making  clear  the 
mystery  of  Frayne's  warning.  Had  the  train 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  297 

been  on  time,  he  would  have  arrived  before 
Elsie's  preparations  for  departure  were  well 
under  way.  His  coming  would  almost  cer- 
tainly have  stopped  her,  while  he  himself 
easily  might,  and  very  likely  would,  have  re- 
mained entirely  ignorant  of  the  step  she  had 
intended  to  take.  A  little  more  quickness  of 
wit  on  her  part — 

Frayne  wanted  everything  arranged  legally 
and  in  strict  accordance  with  established  so- 
cial customs:  Elsie  thought  only  of  getting 
what  she  wanted  with  the  utmost  possible  ra- 
pidity. And  she  wanted  it,  he  realized,  as 
she  had  never  wanted  anything  before.  Only 
he  did  not  know  that  this  was  simply  because 
Frayne  was  the  first  man  who,  since  her  mar- 
riage, had  done  more  than  flirt  a  little  with 
her. 

He  must  see  Frayne,  and  at  once. 

"Dry  your  eyes  and  wash  your  face,  Elsie," 
he  said  authoritatively.  "We're  not  going  to 
let  you  make  a  fool  of  yourself." 

And  with  an  odd  appreciation  of  the  irony 
of  it  all,  he  suddenly  recognized  that  he  had 
linked  himself  with  Cuthbert  Frayne. 

He  went  down  to  the  office,  engaged  a  room 
for  the  night,  and  calling  up  Frayne's  place 


298     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

of  business  on  the  telephone,  made  an  appoint- 
ment to  meet  him  there  next  day,  all  with  that 
same  odd  feeling  of  unreality,  of  playing  a 
part  previously  written  and  even  rehearsed. 
Then  he  walked  down  to  the  beach  and  lay 
awhile  on  the  sand.  It  would  be  wise  to  leave 
Elsie  alone  for  a  time ;  and  he  really  had  noth- 
ing more  to  say  to  her. 

Consequently  he  was  not  in  the  least  dis- 
turbed when  on  the  following  morning  she 
sulked,  refusing  to  speak  to  him.  His  busi- 
ness now  was  with  Frayne,  and  for  that  in- 
terview he  would  need  all  his  energies,  all  his 
self-control. 

The  appointment  was  for  five  o'clock;  in- 
terruptions being  distinctly  undesirable,  Don- 
ald had  chosen  a  late  hour.  He  was  shown  at 
once  into  the  room  where  Frayne  awaited  him, 
a  good-sized  thickly-carpeted  apartment  smell- 
ing strongly  of  hot  leather  and  stale  cigarette 
smoke.  In  after  years  that  combination  of 
odors  always  brought  Frayne's  face  into  Don- 
ald's mind  as  he  saw  it  then,  anxious,  with 
keen,  uneasy  eyes. 

For  a  moment  the  two  men  stood  measuring 
each  other  across  the  wide  oak  table  which 
separated  them,  both  aware,  the  one  awk- 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  299 

vvardly,  the  other  with  a  certain  bitter  amuse- 
ment, that  they  were  ignoring  all  the  conven- 
tionalities of  their  unconventional  situation. 
It  was  Donald  who  at  last  broke  the  silence : 

"I  thought  it  best  that  we  should  meet  and 
talk  this — affair — over  quietly,"  he  said.  And 
no  one  would  have  guessed  that  at  sight 
of  Frayne  the  unreasoning,  atavistic  rage  had 
leaped  up  in  him  once  more  and  been  sternly 
repressed.  He,  the  lamester,  could  dominate 
only  by  force  of  will  and  brain;  and  he  meant 
to  dominate. 

Frayne  nodded,  with  a  relieved  expression 
which  caused  Donald  to  add  in  the  rather  caus- 
tic tone  he  sometimes  used: 

"Of  course,  I  know  that  according  to  all  the 
established  rules  for  a  matter  of  this  kind,  we 
ought  at  least  to  be  breaking  chairs  over  each 
other's  heads.  Take  it  all  in  all,  though,  I'm 
not  thirsting  for  your  blood — just  now.  And 
I'm  perfectly  willing  to  suppose  that  you'll 
restrain  any  latent  desire  you  may  have  to  im- 
bibe mine." 

"That's  right,"  Frayne's  reply  was  compre- 
hensive, if  not  eloquent.  He  was  in  truth 
more  than  a  trifle  bewildered. 

"Well,  then,  suppose  you  give  me  a  brief 


300     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

history  of  the  whole  matter.     I  really  think— 
I  may  be  wrong,  but  I  really  do  think — I  have 
some  small  claim  to  enlightenment." 

Irony  was  a  weapon  Frayne  did  not  under- 
stand. He  was,  however,  neither  a  weakling 
nor  a  coward,  and  if  he  knew  nothing  of  rapier 
play,  he  was  at  least  capable  of  wielding  a 
bludgeon  with  some  efficiency.  Only  just  now 
a  bludgeon  seemed  rather  out  of  place.  He 
drew  a  long  breath,  and  began: 

"I  met — the  little  lady — last  summer,  and 
— oh,  I  guess  you  know  well  enough  how  these 
things  start  off!  I  ain't  a  villain  out  of  a 
movie  show" — in  moments  of  excitement 
Frayne  occasionally  lapsed  into  the  vernacu- 
lar— "but  where's  the  harm  in  a  bit  of  flirtin'? 
'Least,  that  was  what  Z  thought.  And  then 
I  found  I  was  gettin'  in  deeper  and  deeper. 
She — well,  she  wasn't  happy." 

For  the  first  time  he  squared  his  big  shoul- 
ders and  glanced  aggressively  at  Donald,  who 
gave  a  little  nod. 

"I  know!"  he  said  sympathetically.  "She 
made  you  feel  sorry  for  her,  didn't  she?  I 
know!" 

A  blow  would  have  been  less  humiliating  to 
Cuthbert  Frayne  than  that  pronouncement,  so 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  301 

spoken.  For  a  blow  he  could  have  returned, 
while  against  this  hint  that  he  had  been  what 
he  himself  would  have  termed  "an  easy  mark," 
he  was  powerless.  Donald  saw  with  entirely 
carnal  satisfaction  that  his  flick  of  the  lash 
had  drawn  blood. 

Frayne  had  a  confused,  exasperated  sense 
that  it  was  he  who  should  be  triumphant,  con- 
descending to  this  cripple,  to  this  husband 
whose  wife  was  ready  to  leave  him  at  the  lift- 
ing of  his — Frayne's — little  finger.  It  was 
his  to  be  superior,  his  to  sneer.  And  yet  he 
was  aware  of  inferiority,  of  being  dominated 
mentally  and  morally,  by  one  he  could  have 
disposed  of,  physically,  with  ease. 

His  irritation  showed  in  voice  and  manner 
as  he  replied  bluntly:  "Yes,  she  did. 
Damned  sorry." 

Donald  held  up  a  protesting  hand. 

"There,  there!"  he  said  in  the  soothing  man- 
ner he  knew  to  be  particularly  galling  to 
Frayne.  No  person  on  earth  is  so  exasperat- 
ing as  the  opponent  who  is  able  to  keep  his 
temper  after  we  have  lost  our  own.  "Don't 
get  excited ;  it's  much  too  hot." 

But  for  all  his  soothing  tone,  his  nonchalant 
manner,  his  knowledge  that  it  was  he  who  dom- 


302     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

inated  the  situation,  the  consciousness  of  his 
physical  inferiority  to  Frayne  was  like  a 
gnawing  tooth  within  him. 

Frayne  glowered  at  him,  speechless  for  a 
moment.  Then  he  managed  to  control  him- 
self so  far  as  to  be  able  to  snap  out:  "Well, 
what  the  devil  are  we  to  do,  anyway?  What 
are  you  going  to  do?" 

"You  think  that's  the  question?" 

"Of  course;  ain't  it?" 

Donald  smiled;  and  again  that  feeling  of 
unreality  and  a  part  rehearsed,  swept  over 
him. 

"If  you'll  pardon  my  saying  so,"  he  re- 
marked pleasantly,  "your  point  of  view  seems 
to  me  a  trifle — shall  we  call  it,  medieval? 
Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  tell  me  frankly 
just  how  you  think  I  am  to  settle  affairs 
for  the  three  of  us?  I'd  really  like  to 
know." 

Frayne  opened  his  mouth  to  speak,  but  no 
words  came,  and  he  sat  staring  at  Donald  and 
looking  somewhat  like  a  huge,  embarrassed, 
gasping  fish.  Concrete  issues  he  could  man- 
age, whether  they  were  of  men  or  of  events, 
but  these  subtleties  perplexed  him  hopelessly. 
Characteristically  enough,  he  had  endeavored 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  303 

to  dispose  of  his  difficulties  by  dumping  them 
on  another  man's  shoulders. 

And  still  that  other  man  waited  for  a  reply, ' 
an    ironical    smile   just   touching   his   clean- 
shaven, thin-lipped  mouth,  as  though  he  read 
Frayne's  thoughts  and  considered  them  amus- 
ing. 

"A  man  ought  to  be  able  to  manage  his  own 
wife."  Frayne  was  perfectly  aware  of  the 
banality  of  this  remark,  but  he  could  think  of 
no  other. 

Donald's  smile  became  a  wee  bit  more  pro- 
nounced. 

"How,  please?"  he  inquired.  "By  lock  and 
key,  physical  violence,  or  will  power?  The 
first  two  methods  are  obsolete— in  fact,  they're 
actually  illegal— and  the  third  requires  con- 
stant exertion.  Oh,  I  admit  that  face  to  face 
with— Elsie,  I'm  entirely  capable  of  govern- 
ing her,  but  surely  you  don't  expect  me  to 
remain  face  to  face  with  her  for  the  rest  of  my 
natural  life?" 

"Then  you  mean  to  let  her  do  as  she  darned 
pleases?"  Frayne's  exclamation  was  unmis- 
takably tinged  with  alarm. 

"Not  altogether.  But  if  your  respect  for 
the  proprieties  hadn't  induced  you  to  call  on 


304     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

me  for  assistance —  You  see?"  A  shrug 
completed  the  sentence. 

"What  did  she  tell  you?"  Frayne  demanded 
brusquely.  It  was  quite  needless  to  explain 
that  he  had  believed  Elsie  possessed  of  a 
quicker  wit  than  was  hers. 

"That  you  wanted  her  to  go  to  Reno  and 
get  a  divorce,  but  she  objected  to  the  neces- 
sary— exile.  I  understand  it  was  your  strong 
desire  to  have  everything  done  decently  and  in 
order." 

Frayne  hesitated.  As  well  almost  as  Don- 
ald himself,  he  knew  the  word  "exile"  had  been 
substituted  for  another.  Presently  he  said 
with  a  certain  blunt  straightforwardness 
which  was  not  without  dignity:  "Well,  not 
to  beat  about  the  bush  any,  it's  this  way.  I'd 
like  to  marry — the  little  lady.  I  guess  we'd 
hit  it  off  first-rate.  She's  my  sort,  and  she 
ain't  yours.  She  don't  care  a  hang  about  the 
things  you  like;  all  she  wants  is  plenty  of 
money  and  the  kind  of  good  time  I'd  give  her. 
Ain't  that  so?" 

Donald  nodded.  "Yes,"  he  said  slowly, 
"yes,  you're  right." 

"But  you  see  it's  this  way,4'  Frayne  went 
on,  encouraged  by  the  other's  attitude. 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  305 

"Scandal  wouldn't  suit  my  book — not  by  a 
long  shot.  I'm  a  self-made  man,  socially,  and 
I've  had  to  do  some  pretty  stiff  climbin'.  I 
mean  to  climb  higher  yet,  but  I  couldn't  do  it 
with  a  wife  other  women  wouldn't  know. 
See?" 

"I  see.  But  you  can  hardly  expect  me  to 
become  greatly  exercised  over  the  difficulties 
of  your  social  career." 

"No;  but  that  ain't  all."  Frayne  was 
speaking  now  with  obvious  embarrassment. 
"  'Twouldn't  suit— her— either.  You  know 
how  women  are,  once  they've  kicked  over  the 
traces!  And  she's  the  sort  that  if  she  ever 
thought  she  was  outside — " 

He  broke  off  with  an  imploring  glance  at 
Donald,  drew  forth  a  large  silk  handkerchief, 
and  wiped  his  moist  forehead. 

"I  understand,"  said  Donald  quietly.     "Go 


on." 


Frayne  paused.  He  very  much  did  not 
want  to  go  on.  The  thing  in  Elsie  which  Doc- 
tor Brainerd  had  divined  and  Donald  felt,  the 
thing  which  underlay  and  complicated  the  en- 
tire situation,  he  was  vaguely  aware  of,  but 
without  knowledge  or  understanding. 

"Well,"  he  went  on  at  last,  "there  ain't  much 


306     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

more  to  say.  If  you  and  her  get  divorced, 
then  she  can  marry  me  all  straight  and  regu- 
lar. But  I  wish—" 

Again  he  broke  off,  and  again  Donald 
forced  him  to  continue : 

"Go  on!" 

"I  wish  it  could  be  managed  without  her 
goin'  off  all  alone  to  a  place  like  Reno.  Here 
in  New  York  where  people  know  her — it's  dif- 
ferent." 

Donald  glanced  up  quickly,  with  a  half  sup- 
pressed exclamation:  "Ah!  You  see  the 
danger  too,  then?" 

"You  bet  I  do!  I  didn't  at  first,  but 
now — " 

"It's  the  obstacle  which  occurred  to  me.' 
Frankly,  I  have  a  certain  feeling  of  re- 
sponsibility. And  yet — I  don't  quite  see 
how  a  smash-up  of  some  sort  is  to  be 
avoided." 

A  long  pause;  in  the  stillness  a  couple  of 
flies  buzzed  insistently.  At  last  Frayne  said 
with  a  curious  mixture  of  diffidence  and 
bravado : 

"There's  a  way— if  you'll  take  it." 

"What's  that?" 

"Let  her  divorce  you — here." 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  307 

Donald's  shoulder  jerked.  "But  that 
means — " 

Frayne  had  intended  to  say  one  thing;  he 
substituted  another.  "Providing  legal  evi- 
dence. It's  often  done." 

"Yes,  I  know—" 

"Of  course,  if  you  insist  on  Reno,"  Frayne 
continued  thoughtfully,  "I  suppose  between 
us  we  can  make  the  little  lady  agree." 

"If  I  insist!  Really,  my  dear  Mr. 
Frayne!" 

"Oh,  damn  it  all!  I  forgot!"  Frayne's 
consternation  was  as  sincere  as  it  was  ludi- 
crous. "Sittin'  here  talkin',  we  two— 

"It's  not  quite  the  usual  thing  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, is  it?  But  it  seems  so  much  more 
sensible  than  coffee  and  pistols  for  two,  for 
instance." 

Frayne  started,  and  looked  uneasy,  and 
Donald  smiled  a  little.  He  had  dominated, 
as  he  had  meant  to  do;  he  could  feel  confident 
that  if  he  yielded,  he  yielded  to  his  own  belief 
that  he  was  doing  what  was  right  and  just,  not 
to  Cuthbert  Frayne.  For  he  knew  that  it 
was  Frayne  who  feared  him,  not  he  Frayne. 

"Of  course,"  he  said  encouragingly—he 
could  afford  to  be  encouraging  now!— "of 


308     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

course,    if    things    weren't    exactly    as    they 


are—" 


He  stopped  there.  He  could  not  add  that 
if  he  had  had  a  spark  of  love  left  for  his  wife, 
or  if  he  had  thought  her  one  who  required 
more  than  material  and  sensual  satisfactions, 
he  would  be  opposing  with  all  the  strength  of 
his  wit  and  his  will  the  man  with  whom  he  now 
talked  so  quietly. 

Frayne  continued  eagerly:  "Of  course,  I 
know  I'm  the  one  who  ought  to  pay  the  shot 
all  right,  if  anybody's  got  to  pay!  If  we 
didn't  have  such  a  damfool  divorce  law  in  this 
State  there'd  be  no  trouble.  It  would  be  just 
a  plain  matter  of  correctin'  a  mistake,  and  no 
harm  done  to  anybody.  But  as  things  are — " 

Again  Donald's  shoulder  jerked.  "As 
things  are,  it  looks  as  if  I  might  have  to  make 
myself  legally  culpable  in  order  to  keep  Elsie 
from  spoiling  all  the  rest  of  her  life !  Thanks 
to  you — " 

But  he  stopped  there.  For  he  knew  Elsie 
too  well  to  hold  Frayne  entirely,  or  even  prin- 
cipally responsible.  Frayne  or  another — the 
first  who  seemed  likely  to  satisfy  the  demands 
of  her  real  self,  unfastidious  beneath  the  so- 
cial veneer,  greedy,  sensual,  materialistic,  un- 


THE  LITTLE  GODS  309 

intelligent.  There  was  no  doubt  whatever  in 
his  mind  that  Frayne  was  right  when  he  de- 
clared that  he  would  "hit  it  off  first-rate"  with 
Elsie.  She  would  be  at  once  happier  and 
safer  with  Frayne,  who  could  give  her  all  she 
wanted,  than  she  had  ever  been  with  him ;  mat- 
ters had  so  fallen  out  that  he  could  best  fulfill 
the  pledge  and  obligation  he  had  taken  upon 
himself  by  leaving  her  free  to  become  the  wife 
of  this  other  man.  He  smiled  a  little  grimly 
as  he  thought  of  the  smirch  he  must  put  upon 
his  own  name,  the  infidelity  of  which  he  must 
become  apparently  guilty  in  order  that  the 
very  essence  of  loyalty  might  be  preserved. 
And  when  he  left  Frayne,  he  had  agreed  seri- 
ously to  consider  "the  one  way." 

Surely,  the  little  gods  were  enjpying  them- 
selves ! 

The  grim  smile  was  still  on  Donald's  lips  as 
he  got  into  the  elevator,  for  he  believed  that 
this  thing  which  he  had  practically  agreed  to 
do,  far  from  removing  the  barrier  between 
Nita  Wynne  and  himself,  would  render  it  for- 
ever impassable. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING 

rTlHE  first  bit  of  information  about  the 
A  ironic  twist  Donald's  affairs  had  taken 
that  Nita  received,  came  to  her  one  April 
morning,  as  she  lay  in  her  steamer  chair, 
propped  up  with  pillows,  and  watched  the 
sunshine  sparkling  on  the  waters  of  the  Irish 
Sea.  Nearly  a  year  of  hard  work,  "some- 
where in  France,"  and  constant  strain,  mental 
and  moral  as  well  as  physical,  had  temporarily 
exhausted  her  usually  abundant  stock  of  vi- 
tality. The  doctors  had  ordered  her  to  go 
home  and  rest,  under  threat  of  a  possible  in- 
validism,  and  she  was  now  on  her  way  from 
Liverpool  to  New  York,  her  common  sense 
telling  her  that  she  was  incapacitated  for  the 
kind  of  work  she  had  been  doing  during  the 
past  months,  while  in  her  own  country  she 
could  add  her  voice,  her  testimony,  feeble 
though  both  might  be,  in  protest  against  con- 
tinued and  shameful  inaction.  For  the 


AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING     311 

Lusitania  had  been  followed  by  the  Arabic  and 
the  Ancona;  the  crowning  atrocity  of  the  Sw- 
sex  had  brought  forth  one  more  example  of 
epistolary  talents,  and  the  United  States  was 
still,  officially  at  least,  on  friendly  terms  with 
the  murderer  nation.  Nita  thought  of  the  hos- 
pital near  Paris  where  she  had  served,  of  the 
children  in  the  little  English  coast  villages, 
foully  done  to  death  by  Zeppelin  bombs,  of  the 
faces  of  the  Belgian  refugees — 

But  these  were  thoughts  against  which  she 
had  been  warned.  She  moved  a  little,  and  the 
edge  of  the  fur  rug  in  which  she  was  wrapped 
to  the  chin  touched  her  cheek  caressingly. 
She  drew  forth  one  hand  and  stroked  it  with  an 
almost  childish  delight.  It  was  so  pleasant  to 
remember  that  such  soft  and  lovely  things  still 
existed  in  the  world! 

And  now  she  was  going  back  home.  Once 
more  the  problems  of  that  individual  life,  of 
whose  importance  to  herself  she  had  come  to 
feel  almost  ashamed,  must  be  met  face  to  face. 
Not  that  she  had  ever  forgotten  or  tried  to 
evade  them;  only  to  one  of  her  sympathetic 
temperament  self-abnegation  had  seemed  in- 
evitable, a  mere  matter  of  course  there  in 
France,  where  a  nation  set  the  example. 


312     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

For  a  long  time  Nita  lay  alone,  soothed  by 
that  gentle  lapping  of  the  water  she  was  so 
soon  to  exchange  for  the  clash!  bang!  of  the 
New  York  streets.  She  was  dreaming  rather 
than  thinking,  for  her  brain  seemed  partly  be- 
numbed by  the  very  force  and  multiplicity  of 
the  impressions  it  had  received  during  the  past 
year:  yet  what  she  had  seen  was  after  all  but  a 
tiny  fragment  of  the  stupendous  whole.  And 
now  as  she  reclined  there,  temporarily  out  of 
it  all,  the  one  thing  clearly  present  to  her  mind 
was  a  sense  of  fellowship,  of  being  herself  one 
in  a  vast,  closely  knit  organization  of  indi- 
viduals, strikingly  different,  strikingly  alike. 
She  was  proud,  very  proud,  of  her  own  small 
part  in  this  fellowship,  while  humble  as  never 
before  in  her  opinion  of  herself.  For  she  had 
seen  what  men  and  women — mere  ordinary, 
everyday  men  and  women — can  become;  real- 
ized as  a  living,  splendid  fact  what  she  had 
heretofore  only  believed  in  a  vague,  theoretical 
way :  that  in  humanity  divinity  abides. 

She  was  presently  aroused  by  the  appearance 
of  the  steward,  bringing  letters  forwarded 
from  her  hotel  in  London.  Nita  read  several 
with  mild  pleasure,  and  at  last  came  to  one 
in  her  stepmother's  sprawling  hand.  Mrs. 


AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING     313 

Wynne  loved  to  pour  forth  gossip,  and  as  let- 
ters offer  a  means  of  doing  this  unchecked  by 
interruptions,  she  was  the  most  faithful  of  cor- 
respondents. Her  writing  was  fairly  legible, 
and  Nita  went  idly  through  paragraph  after 
paragraph  of  small  talk,  which  if  it  told  of  an 
existence  that  now  seemed  very  remote,  was 
nevertheless  restful  to  one  who  had  been  living 
at  a  tension  which  strained  body  and  nerves  to 
the  breaking  point.  She  turned  a  page: 

"I  have  one  piece  of  news  I'm  sure  will  sur- 
prise you,"  Mrs.  Wynne  wrote.  "Elsie  has 
divorced  Donald  Forsythe,  and  in  this  State! 
The  case  was  tried  before  a  referee,  and  so  far 
as  I  can  find  out,  no  one  knows  much  about  it. 
Well,  it  only  goes  to  prove  what  I've  always 
said:  Any  woman  can  get  a  divorce  if  she 
really  wants  one.  Watch  the  man;  that's  all 
there  is  to  it." 

Nita  gave  a  little  gasp  and  sat  up  straight, 
eagerly  looking  for  more.  But  the  next  sen- 
tence switched  to  a  different  topic,  and  she 
dropped  back  again  among  the  pillows,  un- 
consciously crushing  the  letter  in  a  hard  grip. 
Lightning-swift  her  thoughts  raced  back  over 
the  years,  seeking  an  explanation;  the  seem- 
ingly obvious  one  she  had  instantly  dismissed, 


314     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

as  unworthy  of  even  the  briefest  consideration. 
She  knew  Donald  Forsythe  too  well.  Some- 
thing of  the  truth  she  divined  almost  instantly, 
but  the  actual,  rather  ironical  way  it  had  come 
about,  she  could  not  even  guess  at.  Her  belief 
was  that  her  dread  had  been  justified,  and 
Donald  permitted  Elsie  to  obtain  the  divorce  in 
order  to  save  her  good  name.  Such  were  the 
outlines  of  the  affair  as  she  saw  them,  not 
wholly  unlike  the  fact,  only  more  crude,  more 
glaring  in  color.  It  was  when  she  tried  to  fill 
in  those  outlines  that  she  found  herself  at- 
tempting the  impossible. 

Passing  from  this  vain  endeavor,  she  sought 
to  gauge  Donald's  mental  attitude  toward 
the  situation — and  toward  herself.  It  was 
then  that  she  came  nearest  to  the  full  truth,  al- 
most as  near,  indeed,  as  it  is  ever  possible  for 
one  human  being  to  come  to  the  mind  and  heart 
of  another.  She  remembered  the  sacrifice  she 
had  made,  the  ideal  of  loyalty  she  had  held  so 
high.  And  humbly,  from  the  very  depths  of 
her  soul,  she  thanked  God  that  in  this  one  thing 
at  least  she  had  not  failed.  There  might,  prob- 
ably would  be,  whispers  and  innuendoes;  the 
law  would  forbid  them  to  marry  in  their  own 
city  and  State.  All  that  these  unpleasant- 


AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING     315 

nesses  would  mean  to  him,  loving  and  reverenc- 
ing her  as  he  did,  she  very  well  understood; 
but  she  intended  to  brush  them  aside.  Before 
the  high  judgment  seat  of  their  own  con- 
sciences they  would  stand,  he  and  she,  free 
from  blame. 

And  once  again  a  weary,  dragging  voice 
echoed  in  her  ears:  "Nothing  matters  any 
more." 

What  matters,  what  does  not  matter :  some- 
thing of  this  was  among  the  lessons  the  years 
had  taught  her. 

Of  these  and  many  other  things  she  thought 
long  and  often  during  the  following  week 
while,  lying  at  ease  in  her  steamer  chair,  she 
drew  in  fresh  vitality  with  every  breath  from 
the  sea  she  dearly  loved.  And  sometimes  mem- 
ory took  her  back  to  the  girl  who  had  been  so 
sure  of  herself,  so  ready  to  pronounce  judg- 
ment on  others.  "Tolerance  is  an  acquired 
virtue — else  it  isn't  a  virtue  at  all,"  Donald  had 
said.  How  much  of  it  had  she  as  yet  acquired, 
who  had  once  had  so  little?  And  suddenly  she 
remembered  an  episode  of  her  youth,  her  own 
emphatic:  "She  smokes  and  makes  up  and 
drinks  cocktails,  and  every  one  knows  that  she 
and  Mr.  Ashurst  arranged  their  divorce. 


316     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

Nice  women  don't  do  such  things."  She  could 
hear  herself  saying  that,  could  see  the  dining 
room  in  her  old  home,  her  father  seated  on  the 
other  side  of  the  damask-covered  table.  How 
positive  she  had  been — then! 

The  days  of  the  voyage,  the  first  few  days 
after  her  return  slid  by,  shadowy  as  a  remem- 
bered dream.  It  seemed  to  her  that  her  real 
life  was  temporarily  suspended  while  she 
waited  for  the  meeting  which  was  to  be  at  once 
an  end  and  a  beginning,  to  give  significance  to 
her  existence,  past,  present,  and  future.  But 
when  a  week  had  passed,  she  understood  that  if 
it  was  to  come  at  all,  it  must  come  either 
through  chance  or  her  own  doing;  and  chance 
might  be  so  slow,  might  act  so  awkwardly ! 

Two  weeks  and  more  had  gone,  and  she  was 
again  established  in  the  little  apartment  on 
Gramercy  Park,  when  one  afternoon  she  sat 
down  at  her  desk,  wrote  a  brief  note,  and  dis- 
patched it  on  the  instant — only  to  wish  heart- 
ily that  she  could  undo  the  impetuous  act  the 
moment  the  missive  was  safely  in  the  box. 
There  is  such  a  terrifying  finality  about  the 
posting  of  a  letter! 

Yet  to  the  outsider  this  one  would  have 
seemed  simple  and  impersonal  enough: 


AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING     317 

My  dear  Mr.  Forsythe, 

It  has  occurred  to  me  that  several  rather  in- 
teresting and  perhaps  useful  articles  could  be 
made  out  of  my  experiences  in  France  and 
England.  As  I  know  very  little  about  arrang- 
ing for  such  things,  I  am  venturing  to  ask  you 
to  come  in  some  afternoon  this  week  and  give 
me  a  little  advice.  I  have  been  ill,  and  am  still 
unable  to  go  around  very  much,  else  I  would 
not  trouble  you. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

ANITA  WYNNE. 

Businesslike  and  unromantic,  surely!  Yet 
Nita  flushed  crimson  every  time  she  thought  of 
those  somewhat  stiff  phrases.  She  hoped  he 
would  come  immediately — she  hoped  he  would 
not  come  at  all  I  And  then  she  rebuked  herself 
for  giving  so  much  as  an  instant's  consideration 
to  the  traditions  and  standards  of  behavior 
inherited  from  generations  of  women  to  whom 
a  husband  meant  not  only  a  mate  but  also  a 
food-and-clothes  purveyor.  For  ten  years 
and  more  she  had  faced  the  world,  standing 
erect  and  unaided  on  her  own  two  feet.  She 
was  glad  now  that  circumstances  had  thrust 
her  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  dependents, 

Although  it  seemed  long  to  her,  in  clock 
measurement  the  time  was  short  between  her 


318     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

sending  of  the  note  and  Donald's  appearance. 
She  had  mailed  it  late  one  afternoon,  and  the 
next  his  quick  limping  step  sounded  in  the  hall 
outside  her  door. 

She  rose  and  stood  waiting,  lithe,  tense, 
seeming  as  of  old  poised  ready  for  flight.  But 
when  he  entered  and  took  her  outstretched 
hand,  she  could  not  see  his  face  for  the  mist 
that  dimmed  her  eyes.  And  she  never  knew 
how  long  the  silence  lasted. 

Presently  they  were  seated,  she  leaning 
back  in  the  big  chair  which  was  Mary's  favor- 
ite, he  sitting  straight  and  stiff,  rigid  as  never 
before  in  her  presence.  And  his  first  question 
came  almost  tonelessly,  as  if  an  effort  were  re- 
quired just  to  force  it  through  his  lips: 

"You've  been  ill?" 

She  smiled,  a  little  wistfully ;  somehow,  with 
the  breaking  of  the  long  silence,  ease  had  come 
to  her.  More  than  ever  did  she  resemble  a 
crystal-shielded  flame.  Her  slender  form,  her 
long,  thin,  nervous  hands,  seemed  refined  to 
the  very  utmost,  as  though  the  inner  fire  had 
burned  away  all  the  dross,  leaving  only  an  ex- 
quisite, transparent  shell  for  the  radiant  spirit 
to  inhabit, 

"Yes,"  she  said  quietly;  and  though  she 


AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING     319 

thought  she  spoke  in  her  usual  tone,  her  voice 
had  never  before  been  so  musical,  so  velvet- 
soft.  "Yes,  a  little.  I  worked  too  hard,  of 
course.  Every  one  does — over  there."  A 
shadow  passed  across  her  face,  darkening  her 
eyes  for  a  moment.  She  would  never  forget 
what  she  had  seen  "over  there." 

"And  now—?" 

If  the  breaking  of  the  silence  had  brought 
ease  to  her,  for  him  self-control  was  becoming 
more  difficult  every  instant.  Her  fragile  look, 
the  wistful  smile,  the  passing  shadow — all 
these  indicated  a  need  which  appealed  to  every 
fiber  of  manliness  within  him. 

"And  now,"  she  repeated,  speaking  very 
quietly,  though  the  slim  hands  clasped  together 
in  her  lap  held  each  other  in  a  tense  grip,  "and 
now  I  want  to  pick  up  all  the  threads  I've 
dropped  in  the  past  eleven  months.  I  want  to 
find  out" — she  forced  herself  to  finish  the  sen- 
tence, though  the  violent  beating  of  her  heart 
made  her  almost  breathless — "what  has  hap- 
pened to  all  my  friends — and  why." 

He  drove  straight  at  what  he  recognized  for 
the  real  meaning  of  her  words;  fencing,  eva- 
sion, seemed  unworthy,  almost  an  insult  to  her. 
"You  know,  then?" 


320     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

An  instant  she  hesitated,  but  only  that  she 
might  master  the  choking  constriction  of  her 
throat.  And  in  one  brief  sentence  she  ex- 
pressed her  faith : 

"I  know  you  have  saved — Elsie,"  she  said. 

He  had  been  staring  out  of  the  window  with 
eyes  that  saw  nothing  of  either  park  or  street. 
Now  he  turned  towards  her  sharply,  as  his 
shoulder  jerked  in  the  old  familiar  way. 
Loyal  to  the  end,  he  would  have  denied  the 
implication,  but  could  not  with  those  beloved 
eyes  upon  him. 

"Who  is  the  man?"  she  asked  gently. 

"Cuthbert  Frayne.  They  will  be  married 
next  month."  Why  refuse  to  admit  what  she 
would  surely  know  in  a  very  little  while  ? 

"Then  what  we  both  tried  so  hard  to  pre- 
vent— ?"  For  the  first  time  in  all  the  years 
that  difficult  joint  guardianship  was  thus 
openly  acknowledged. 

But  he  interrupted  her  with  a  quick  gesture 
of  denial.  "No  I  not  that." 

"Tell  me ;  I  want  to  think  as  well  of  her  as  I 


can." 


And  bluntly,  minimizing  as  far  as  he  could 
Elsie's  wrong,  laying  all  possible  stress  on  his 
own  shortcomings,  he  told  her  what  he  had 


AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING     321 

thought  never  to  reveal  to  any  human  being. 

When  he  had  finished,  she  was  silent  for  a 
time,  while  her  knowledge  both  of  him  and  of 
Elsie  supplied  many  of  the  gaps  his  chivalry 
had  left  unfilled.  Then  very  slowly  she  asked : 

"And  what— of  you?" 

"I've  left  the  Colonial,  and  I'm  joining  the 
staff  of  the  National  Review/' 

"Oh,  I  am  gladl"  she  exclaimed,  the  old 
eager  interest  in  tone  and  manner.  For  the 
National  Review,  a  weekly  paper  recently 
started  by  a  little  band  of  exceptionally  intelli- 
gent men  and  women  appealed,  and  was  in- 
tended to  appeal,  to  educated  and  public- 
spirited  readers,  and  was  achieving  a  success 
very  unlike  that  sought  by  the  Colonial. 

While  they  talked,  the  light  had  faded. 
The  corners  of  the  room  were  full  of  shadows ; 
everywhere  outlines  were  softened.  And  with 
the  shadows,  memories  came  thronging. 

"But  you?"  Donald  spoke  brusquely,  almost 
violently.  For  his  heart  had  leaped  at  that 
note  of  eager  interest  in  her  voice,  "You 
won't  go  back." 

She  shook  her  head;  and  the  mouth  which 
character  had  shaped  into  lines  both  strong  and 
sweet  quivered  a  little. 


322     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

"Not  for  a  time,  at  least."  Something  of 
the  struggle  and  the  agony,  the  sacrifices  and 
the  heroisms  she  had  witnessed  and  shared 
found  expression  now  through  the  new,  deep 
thrill  in  her  tones.  "It  was  all — very  wonder- 
ful. I'm  just  beginning  to  see  fiow  wonder- 
ful—" 

She  paused,  unable  to  find  words,  she  whose 
speech  had  always  been  so  swift,  so  impet- 
uous. 

And  neither  of  them  remembered  the  osten- 
sible reason  for  his  presence. 

Suddenly  he  rose ;  the  strain  and  the  conflict 
were  becoming  too  great  for  his  endurance. 
He  dared  not  stay. 

And  Nita  realized  his  pain  and  his  struggle, 
and  all  the  strength  of  her  being  cried  out  in 
protest.  Her  head  swam,  every  nerve  quiv- 
ered. She  felt  dumb,  helpless,  stricken;  yet 
she  rose  and  faced  him,  and  words  fell  from  her 
stiff  lips : 

"I  went  over  there — mostly — because  you 
wanted  to  go  and — couldn't.  I  tried  to  do — 
good  work — for  both  of  us," 

The  last  words  were  scarcely  more  than 
breathed;  but  he  heard  them  and  took  a  quick 
step  forward.  Then  he  recoiled. 


AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING     823 

"For — both  of  us?  You  don't  mean— you 
can't  mean — " 

A  moment  her  Hands  covered  her  face,  obe- 
dient to  the  centuries-old  instinct.  She 
dropped  them,  and  confronted  him  proudly, 
with  head  held  high.  Let  him  understand  if 
he  would. 

"Nita  .  .  .  ?    Dearest!" 

He  caught  the  slender  hands  in  his,  and 
stood  looking  down  at  her  for  one  breathless 
instant,  questioning,  incredulous.  All  the 
complicated,  perplexing  web  of  lives  entan- 
gled with  theirs  fell  away  now.  They  were 
alone  together  as  on  some  mountain  peak. 
And  there  was  only  one  thing  that  mat- 
tered. 

Swiftly  he  drew  her  to  his  arms,  and  she 
went  gladly,  yielding  her  lips,  proud  to  give 
herself  to  this  man  she  loved  more  nobly  even 
than  he  knew. 

A  little  later,  as  they  sat  together  on  that 
window  seat  from  which  Nita  had  so  often 
looked  out,  alone,  over  Gramercy  Park,  Don- 
ald said : 

"And  I  told  myself  I  mustn't  even  dream 
pf  trying  to  make  you  care  for  me,  mustn't  ever 


324     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

tell  you  I  loved  you,  because — "  He  broke  off 
there,  and  his  voice  grew  suddenly  grave. 
"Dear,  how  can  I  dare  ask  you  to  marry  me? 
You  know  what  it  means;  going  out  of  the 
State  and — and  all  that." 

She  laughed  softly  and  very  happily ;  yet  she 
did  indeed  know  what  it  meant,  knew  far  more 
definitely  than  he,  as  a  woman  always  under- 
stands what  "people  will  say"  far  better  than 
any  man  ever  can. 

"As  if  that  mattered!" 

"And  I've  so  little  to  offer  you!  Uncle  At- 
kinson never  forgave  me  for  those  North  East- 
ern articles,  though  since  the  war  came,  he's 
been  willing  to  speak  to  me." 

The  words  were  uttered  in  all  sincerity. 
He  did  not  know  that  to  Atkinson  Matthews, 
once  Major  Matthews  of  the  Union  Army,  his 
grandnephew's  stand  for  American  honor  and 
association  with  the  American  Rights  Commit- 
tee had  obliterated  everything  else;  nor  that 
because  of  this,  he,  Donald  Forsythe,  would 
find  himself  before  many  months  were  passed 
the  astonished  possessor  of  a  comfortable  in- 
come. 

Nita  laughed  again.  "What  difference  does 
that  make?  You  have  your  work  and  I  mine; 


AN  END  AND  A  BEGINNING     325 

I  don't  intend  to  give  it  up,  I  warn  you.  We 
shan't  starve!" 

"I  wonder  if  any  woman  ever  lived  one  half 
so  sweet  and  strong  and  lovely  and  gener- 
ous—" 

She  lifted  her  hand  in  quick  protest,  dearly 
as  she  loved  to  hear  him  praise  her.  He  kissed 
the  delicate  fingers,  and  there  was  a  short,  well- 
filled  interval  before  she  said,  gently  but  very 
seriously: 

"Don't  put  me  on  a  pedestal,  Donald.  It 
isn't  where  I  belong,  dear,  and  it  isn't  a  bit 
comfortable.  If  you  try  it,  I'll  fall  off  and 
hurt  you.  Just  your  good  comrade  .  .  ." 

Another  lovers'  interlude,  and  then  she  went 
on,  giving  expression  to  her  thoughts  in  happy, 
perfect  assurance  of  his  sympathy  and  compre- 
hension : 

"Do  you  remember  what  you  once  said  about 
tolerance  being  an  acquired  virtue?  It's  taken 
a  good  many  years  to  teach  me  even  a  little 
bit  of  it — and  a  good  many  people  too.  Dear 
Miss  Cornelia,  and  my  stepmother,  and  Ru- 
dolph Drake,  and  Geraldine — Geraldine  above 
all!" 

She  broke  off  there,  realizing  how  she  her- 
self would  be  judged  when  her  marriage  be- 


326     THE  LITTLE  GODS  LAUGH 

came  known,  how  she  herself  would  once  have 
judged  any  woman  in  a  similar  position.  It 
was  another  bit  of  irony  for  the  little  gods  to 
laugh  over;  but  only  the  little  gods  would 
laugh,  and  that  just  because  they  were  little, 
and  so  could  not  entirely  understand. 

He  spoke  adoringly:  "But,  sweetheart,  if 
you  hadn't  started  out  with  all  those  fixed  ideas 
of  right  and  wrong,  you  wouldn't  be  now — 
what  you  are.  It's  only  the  big  people,  the 
idealists,  who  begin  that  way,  and  then  are 
taught  by  experience — by  life.  If  you'd  been 
smaller  yourself,  you  wouldn't  have  expected 
so  much  of  everybody  else." 

She  smiled  up  at  him.  "I  wonder  \n  she  re- 
plied softly.  "I  wonder!  To  sympathize — to 
understand — " 

And  the  little  gods  were  still. 


THE  END 


By  the  author  of  "  The  Broad  Highway" 


THE  DEFINITE  OBJECT 


Bj/JEFFERY   FARNOL 
Frontispiece  by  F.  Vaux  Wilson.    $1.50  net 


A  vivid  and  enthralling  romance  of  New  York. — Chicago 
Herald. 

We  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  Mr.  Farnol  has  here  pro- 
duced not  merely  his  own  best  work  but  also  one  of  the  best 
works  of  fiction  that  any  one  has  put  forward  this  season. 
We  have  read  none  in  which  so  many  and  so  very  different 
characters  stand  out  more  vital  and  distinct. —  New  York 
Tribune. 

Readers  will  delight  in  Mr.  Farnol's  story  which  moves 
presto  to  the  end.  It  is  one  of  the  most  diverting  tales  of 
recent  months. — Boston  Herald. 

It  is  written  with  a  whimsical  and  infectious  gayety,  a 
lightness  of  touch  and  blitheness  of  spirit,  which  are  quite 
exhilarating. —  New  York  Times. 


LITTLE,  BROWN  &  CO.,  PUBLISHERS 
34  BEACON  STREET,  BOSTON 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FAOT 


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